The Wolves In Our Midst
Artwork/Karen A.
By Karen A.
“Worrying about scarcity is our culture's version of post-traumatic stress. It happens when we've been through too much, and rather than coming together to heal (which requires vulnerability) we're angry and scared and at each other's throats.” - Brene Brown, Daring Greatly
One of the most devastating side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the way it eroded the basic foundation of goodwill in our society. For 18 months, the virus mercilessly chipped away not only at airways and blood vessels but also our already-thinning sense of trust in one another. The disease spread rampantly against the backdrop of emerging polarization and inequality within our country, pitting people against one another in a way I have never experienced before in my almost four decades of life.
What started out as a battle between humanity and a spiked-crown virus quickly proliferated into a million proxy wars between “us” and “them.” Because it’s difficult to be angry at a faceless enemy that ambushes us by way of invisible aerosol droplets, we channeled our frustration instead onto other beings whom we perceived as threats to our depleting sources of security. To make things worse, there were wolves in our midst who were eager to capitalize on our collective experience of vulnerability and fear. They encouraged us to hurl the blame for the disintegrating state of our lives not at the virus itself but at substitutionary scapegoats within arm’s reach.
Many of us found ourselves cast as the villain, at one point or another, in the ever-changing pandemic narrative. I have been there myself, along with 20 million other Asian American Pacific Islanders who have been on the receiving end of hateful rhetoric and violent acts. There is no metaphor strong enough to capture the abandonment, betrayal, despondency, and injustice that you feel when the tide turns against you—at a time when everything in your world is already hanging by a thread. This unfortunately has been the reality of countless people who have been demonized throughout the pandemic due to their race, gender, occupation, and health status.
Psychology tells us that social trust is the underlying foundation that makes civilization and communities work. In 2007, a study conducted by Pew Research Center found that 50% of Americans found it difficult to trust people in general, and the events in the past year alone further accelerated a collapse in our diminishing trust in one another. A breakdown in social trust causes not only lingering distress and trauma for us but also devastating consequences for our nation as a whole. The distrust that was sown into our lives over the past 18 months has sprouted deep roots, and I imagine that I am not the only one who feels a new level of vulnerability and wariness as I think about how I will relate to other people in a post-pandemic world.
Photo/Imani Givertz.
Karen A. is an illustrator with a passion for using whimsical characters to draw out the emotional complexities of being human. She used to love big cities and lived in a lot of places, including New York City, where she studied at Parsons School of Design at The New School. Then she realized that she missed the hiking trails and long summer nights in Reno and moved back to be near the mountains. She spends a great deal of her free time drinking tea and thinking about existential theory and ontology.
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