At the end of The Gentlemen’s Agreement, Christian character Kathy Lacey laments to John Minify of her lost love, exclaiming, nearly in tears, that even a Jewish man such as Minify could see that she was no anti-Semitic. The woman’s desire to rid herself of this wretched term is fervent, and yet the audience cannot forget the countless nods throughout the movie that suggest that Lacey does, in fact, hold much prejudice against Jewish people. Principally, this assertion lies in the woman’s inaction towards the injustice that she observes with her own eyes - “comforting” Phillip Green’s son after he has had Jewish slurs thrown at him by assuring him he was not “any more Jewish” than she was and failing to speak up against the injustice of the segregation at the couple’s honeymoon location (a place where they could no longer stay due to her fiancé’s experiment) are both examples of the woman’s blatant role as a bystander. The purposeful nature of Lacey’s interactions with discrimination beg the audience to juggle a question that has been asked time and time again when discussing matters of justice - is the bystander just as bad as the bully? Historically, the question has never been able produce a cohesive “yes” or “no” answer. Take the country of Germany during World War II, for example - many may argue that those who remained “neutral” during the removal of Jewish people were not as guilty as those who physically participated in the removal and genocide of millions of people. Many others, however, will argue that regardless of such individual’s justification for being a bystander, their inaction was action in and of itself - that is, you are either for or against the Nazis. Though certainly subjective, I believe that it is safe to say that by failing to utilize her position of power as a white, wealthy, and Christian individual, Lacey, though purposefully or not, perpetuated the continued prejudice against Jewish Americans through her actions - or ultimate lack thereof.