Heroism

Karen Lincoln: So it’s not the brand, it’s not the manufacturer. It’s more whether they’re getting, what I’ve heard many seniors say, the real thing, or something else. And so the something else could be a number of things — it could be a placebo, or it could be something that’s more harmful. And both some of the mythology that is sort of circulating in the community has to do with, ‘Well, you know, it might cause infertility, it might give me COVID.’ And I’m not sure how to even address that, because that is prevalent, that even though the message is that it’s safe, and that it’s effective, there’s still a heightened level of concern about what they would be getting as an African American versus what someone who’s white might be getting, even if it’s in the same facility.
How To Get Vaccines To People Who Aren’t Going Out Of Their Way To Get Them. FiveThirtyEight

The more I hear of the various conspiracies that wind their way through the Black community in the United States, the more I become convinced that the point behind them is for Black people to remind one another of how threatened they are, and, accordingly, how strong they are to have survived in the face of such malevolent intent and overwhelming resources. Because the idea that there is some form of shadow distribution system that manages to deliver faked vaccines to facilities where Black people will receive shots, and keep them straight to that they don't accidentally give the wrong dose to the wrong person seems ridiculous. The sort of doomed-to-fail plan that Cobra Commander might have come up with, back in the day. Although, in the end, I guess it makes a certain level of sense. When one casts an enemy as ten feet tall and bloodthirsty, it makes for much more heroic story than simply surviving the neglect that people often visit upon outsiders.

Maybe it shouldn't. Maybe people would do well to regard the indifference of their fellow humans as something that requires strength, resiliency and stamina to survive. Or, perhaps, simply not placing a price tag on one's own positive self-regard would do the trick.

Of course, I suspect that it's not as easy as that. Were casting off the weight of needing to live up to expectations (self-imposed, or otherwise) so simple, one thinks that people would have done it by now. I've spent a lot of time working to always think well of the person who looks back at me from the mirror, and I'm still terrible at it. I'm still caught up in the idea that if I can control my outward presentation, that I can control how other people will see me, and thus, think of me. Even thought I've "known" for years that what other people think of me is none of my business. I've done a slightly better job of silencing my Inner Critic, but even so, I'm well acquainted with their voice.

And part of the reason for that, I realize, is that I don't think that White people are out to get me. They have their own problems to deal with, and I'm not important enough for them to put time and energy into sabotaging me. I don't rate inclusion in their headlines. So my stumbles and missteps are just that, mine, and not the result of "the dominant culture" throwing stumbling blocks into my path. I can understand the temptation to have a villain to blame.

But I wonder if it does as much harm as good. There may be a story of survival that comes out of all of this, but it can't ever be a story of thriving in the face of the adversities of life as long as people are convinced that their thriving is in the hands of others. When someone else holds all the cards, I suspect that it can be difficult to avoid sliding into a form of learned helplessness, where putting forth the effort to succeed becomes pointless. Or perhaps worse, simply a matter of hoping that the powers that be will smile upon one. (I recall a story of an inner-city man who bought a lottery ticket every week. He was convinced that the game was rigged, and the winners chosen in advance. But he'd convinced himself that the appearance of fairness was important to the operators, and so he played, hoping that one day, he'd be chosen to win by the very people who had rigged the draw against him and so many others.)

There are, of course, a lot of stories that relate how people are being held back, and held down, by the machinations of others. And not all of them are told simply because they're egosyntonic. After all, there are genuine conspiracies in the world. It's understanding the relationship of the self to the story that's harder than it looks.