You Know What's Right

I was in 7th grade when I first learned what it really meant to be a bystander-and how dangerous silence can be.

There was an 8th grade boy at our school. He was different, and everyone knew it. The boys made him a target. They excluded him, mocked him, and humiliated him. Eventually, he gave up trying to belong and turned to the girls, assuming-hoping-they'd be kinder.

They weren't.

Soon, it became a ritual. When he walked toward a group of girls, we would run-not out of fear, but to signal that he didn't belong. We probably didn't mock him or call him names, but the message was clear: you're not one of us. It was a quieter form of cruelty-one that stung just as much.

To save face, he'd chase after us, pretending it was a game, trying to flip the script so he could look like the one in control.

It became a kind of playground theater-a scene that played out daily, right in front of everyone. And none of us stopped it.

I bet 99% of us had absolutely no problem with this kid.
We just didn't want to be the next outsider.
And that was the biggest problem-and so it continued.

It would have stopped when it started if one kid had enough courage and stood up to the bully in the beginning and said, "Leave him alone."
Others usually follow suit.

Eventually, the adults caught on. The nuns, the teachers, the staff-they started paying attention. One day, one of the lay teachers pulled me aside. Not to scold. Not to punish.
But to ask a question I wasn't ready for:

"Why aren't you doing anything to help him?" 

I didn't have an answer. I just remember the heat of shame rising in my chest.

The right kind of shame-the kind that confronts you when you've ignored what you knew in your gut was wrong.
That teacher didn't coddle me. He didn't let me off the hook. 

He looked me in the eye and said:
"Shape up. And get others to do the same. That kid has done nothing to deserve this." 

Trying to hold onto some sense of cool or defiance, I shrugged and said,
"Why should I be the one to do it?" 

He didn't flinch.

He stared straight at me and said words I have never forgotten:

"Because you're not afraid. And you know what's right." 

That was it.
That one sentence rewired something in me.

It called me up to who I already was, beneath the fear of judgment or the pull of peer pressure.
It named my power, and it named my responsibility. 

Never go along when you know something is wrong.
And NEVER be afraid of bullies.

That teacher's voice has lived in my head ever since-through every moment I've watched someone else being torn down, excluded, or attacked.

And here's the truth: we all know what's right.

We feel it in our gut.
We see what's happening in our country-how cruelty has been normalized, how truth has been twisted, how bullies have climbed onto bigger stages.

And yet, there are more of us than there are of them.

We don't have to be afraid if we remember that.
In numbers, with clarity and courage, we can stand up-together.

This is the time to summon the same bravery we expect from our children.
To call each other up, not out.
To face the bullies-not with rage, but with unshakable resolve.

Even if I have some trepidation inside, I hear that voice and repeat to myself:
You aren't afraid, and you know what's right.

We all have these stories. And deep down, we all know what's right.