Symbolic Stories

...as opposed to true ones. 

I met with some cousins last week and briefly explained why had gotten off FB years ago. I was tired of being misunderstood in what seemed positively willful, and being unfriended by two other relatives who were furious that I would not accept the importance of a fake story just because it was, you know, fake. It had seemed to two (other) second cousins that A) How did I know it was fake? and B) Wasn't it racist to even question such an obviously well-meaning story that showed support by we white people for black professionals? 

Well, (A) the story was too perfect, always a bad sign. The good character was too good, the bad character too much of a jerk. That wasn't acceptable. Oh, then you don't really know that the story is fake.  Hahaha. So I took some text with more-unusual words and searched for it.  It seems to exist only on FB. I tried some topic-searches as well, just to make sure. Nothing. Yeah, just like I said, you don't really know that it's fake. Then B) If real stories like this are so common, why not use one of those instead? I'll bet I could find a few rather quickly. So I did. I thought they lacked the symbolic oomph, though. They didn't have the outrage meter dialed up to eleven. I thought they were plenty interesting, though. There was often a related missing piece, though. A couple of the inevitable activist pieces had question marks in them. We would have social justice in medicine speakers at the hospital with fair regularity. Originally, they would be focused on women, but then over half the psychiatrists and nearly all the psychologists and social workers were women and the audiences were attentive and approving, but the outrage factor was becoming nonexistent.  Gay acceptance was similar, though less pronounced.  People were happy to go to short presentation with maybe a Q&A, but if you went more than an hour people would walk out going "Really?"

It was mostly trans activists at the end, the the people who had been at the hospital more that ten years didn't much like the most prominent speaker. They weren't buying it. You trained here back when you were a woman and no one knew you were going to make the switch. You were mean, and an asshole, and nobody liked working with you. You can get those vibes from some of the Black Doctor strories too.  But not all.  I found half-a-dozen in a  ten-minute search where I thought "I would have gone with that one instead." It's not that hard.

Even in NH, we always had a black doctor or two, all of whom were friends, so I showed it around. Jonathan said "Wait, he didn't catch some disease from one of those white people and then die alone and unloved a few weeks later?  They left out part of the story." I thought of that when my relative (the other relative had already unfriended me that afternoon) was getting increasingly irate that I just didn't get it how important this is, and that this is the reality that many black people face every day. Hmm. I'll bet I know way more black doctors than you do. They seem to disagree.  

Maybe that's the beauty of the made-up story. No one is going to pop out of the woodwork on you and say "That guy? Yeah he's not so long suffering. He usually left early." I hadn't thought of the covering-your-trail aspect. Maybe it's not better to have a real story instead.  There will always be some chance, however small, that someone will expose it. With a fake story, who can prove you wrong?

We don't accept that reasoning in topics that are not activist.  If someone is applying for a job we don't add in "He was a golden gloves champion boxer." "Was he really?" "Well no.  I looked him up and couldn't find much.  But I'll bet boxing is important to him."  Or a baseball player "I think we need to draft this kid. He tore up the Big Ten as catcher.  Hit .400 his senior year." "It says here he hit .260." "Yeah, but he hit a lot of balls hard." "Nice swing?" "I don't know.  Never saw him."

I guess it's the outrage that's important.