There are moments in everyone’s life that define them. If you’ve ever seen the movie Inside Out, they are defined as Core Memories. Most people will claim normal ones like their first kiss, wedding day, a championship win, or the birth of a child. Though, I don’t think those events are the true core memories that form the foundations of how we see and interact with the world. True core memories are innocuous moments in our lives that take root in our perceptions unbeknownst to our conscious mind. They are the moments that forced us to reframe everything that came before and question anew all that comes after.
My earliest, recognized, core memory is a test I was given in Eighth Grade Social Studies. At the time, I attended a small private school. We had maybe twelve students in the class, all white, all middle to upper-middle class.
Our teacher, who I still one of my favorite, most influential teachers to this day, divided us into groups of three. She asked us to take out a blank piece of paper, but not to write all our names across the top as usual. Instead, we were to write 1-20 done the paper for a team true or false test. The class was already off to an abnormal start.
Once we had completed the initial, simple task, she said she would read out a series of statements and we were to write true or false. Though odd, it seemed simple enough.
The first statement was, “All Americans are patriotic.”
We looked at each other and giggled a bit. One of the people in the group wrote down true.
The second statement was, “All Asians are good at math.”
Another burst of giggles, but after a brief pause to confer with our groups, everyone came to a quick decision. My group wrote true.
The third statement was, “All Blacks are good at sports.” (This was the late 90’s. African American was only just starting to take hold in our lexicons.)
One of the students in the class raised their hand. “Do you mean they are equally good at all sports or are able to do well in the sport they play?”
The teacher shook her head. “Answer the question as stated.”
We all conferred, trying to understand the purposed of the test as well as the intended meaning of the statement. Eventually my group went with true.
The statements went on, growing darker with each one. About midway through the test, without a flicker of emotion, she stated, “All Jews are greedy.”
I immediately said, “False.” The other two kids in my group were both from Jewish families. They laughed out loud and shook their heads. “No, this one is totally true.” They wrote down true.
I shifted in my chair, but went with their answer. They were Jewish, right? Who was I, a kid raised Catholic, to argue with them about their personal culture?
“All Blacks are lazy.”
I jumped in before anyone could write anything down. “False.”
The people in my group shook their heads again, “Please, most of them are. I’m writing True.”
“No,” I wouldn’t let go of this one. “I have two adopted cousins who are black. They are not lazy. It’s false.” I could have included the many black friends I had outside of school as well.
The others in my group shrugged, wrote false, and I was mullified.
As the statements got more insulting, my group chuckled and wrote whatever they felt like. Several people throughout the class continued debating and answering the questions, but I was becoming frustrated with my group.
I raised my hand. “What if we don’t agree with our group’s majority answer?”
“You can choose not to put your name on the test.”
I nodded. That worked for me.
“But, you will get a zero for this test.”
A zero?! With how our grades were weighted, a zero on a test would be devastating.
“This is a test? Not a quiz?” I was hoping I had heard wrong before.
“This is a test.” Tests weighed heavy on our end of year grade.
I fell back into my chair. The other two in my group were content with what they were writing on the paper. They figured any score on the test was better than a zero. Thoughts of taking home a zero test grade rattled through my head. How would my parent’s react to that? I would get guilt trips over a B when I should have gotten an A. In retrospect, those were times I may have not studied as hard as I should have, but in my thirteen-year-old mind, the idea of volunteering for a zero short circuited all logic. From my perspective, a zero would cause a total meltdown. Trapped by academic pressures, I listened to the proceeding statements and automatically said, “False,” to every single one until the end. Sometimes my group wrote false, sometimes they wrote true. The answer of false became more common with everyone in the room as the test drew to a close and the statements became more and more insulting. When the test was done, I had to make the choice of whether or not to put my name on the paper.
“This is wrong,” I said.
My teacher overheard me and repeated, “You’re free to refuse to put your name on the paper. You know the consequences.”
Frustrated, I wrote my name on the paper, sick to my stomach. I couldn’t afford to take home a zero. This wasn’t a time in history when students our age complained about teachers or thought, “Wait until I tell my parents about this.” This was a teacher we all respected. The shocking nature of what was happening blanked out rationality.
She collected the pages and scanned at all the names. She set the pages on the desk and announced, “You have all failed. If this had been a true, graded test, you would all get zeroes.”
My class sat in shock. I wanted to cry.
“The only right answers were to refuse to take the test or mark all the statements as false.”
Some of the students began debating the earlier statements, the ones that weren’t insulting, but the teacher refused to hear them. “Stop.”
The room went silent.
“No matter the statement, ‘all’ of X is Y is false. This is especially true of people. No one is the same and no one culture is a monolith.”
I wasn’t listening, honestly. None of what she said were new concepts to me. My failure wasn’t due to ignorance, it was cowardice. I wasn’t able to stand up for what I knew was right and I failed.
She came over to me and touched my shoulder to bring my attention back to what she was saying. “None of you should feel bad. This is a lesson I took from one of my classes in college. In my class, we were actually graded. Only one student chose correctly and accepted the zero.”
“Was it you?” someone asked.
She smiled and shook her head. “No. I failed.”
My eyes snapped up to hers and she squeezed my shoulder.
Some people said they had wanted to refuse, but stayed silent after I asked my question. No one wanted to accept the zero.
“Yes. That’s the hardest part about doing the right thing. Sometimes you will be ridiculed, ostracized, punished, or attacked. It’s up to you to decide whether you will be a force who defends others or goes along with the group when someone is being stereotyped and often oppressed.”
We had the rest of the period to ourselves. I don’t remember what the others in the class did, but I sat there, reflecting on my weakness of character and resolved to never stand by in the face of injustice or hatred. I would never be silenced, but always speak out and demand better of people.
To this day, I am still unwilling to let people spout falsehoods and media talking points in the place of legitimate research and verifiable facts. It’s caused a tremendous amount of friction throughout my life with family and friends, but I have never once walked away feeling as if I stood by in silence while others were being made victims or reinforcing false narratives to support their own unsubstantiated opinions. Not many can make that claim, and for good reason. The difficulty, and sometimes danger, of doing the right thing in the face of threats of harm, deportation, and any other number of consequences is often terrifying and very real.
All I can say is I couldn’t live with myself while others, emboldened by a wave of hate and intolerance, repeat lies until everyone begins to think the lie is somehow the truth.
“If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.”
None of us should become victim to a propaganda theory popularized by the Nazi Party.
Fight lies with verifiable truth. Be louder. Repeat more often.
We all fail on occasion. What we learn and do after that failure is far more important.
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