Art featured on Dearfrontline.com frames the heroes of the pandemic as front-line workers, priming society to fight for safe working conditions and fair compensation. (Image by Kate Decechio, courtesy of Big Bowl of Ideas)
It’s long been said that the winners write history. The great Nigerian author Chinua Achebe captures this in a proverb: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” This was clear in 2009 and 2010, when many of the powerful individuals inside the US government and in Wall Street banks, along with pundits and politicians, fueled the narrative that poor people who had “gotten too far over their heads” in homeownership were responsible for the Great Recession. There was little mention of predatory lending, growing inequality, or a lack of consumer protections in the financial industry overall. This narrative of individual responsibility—rather than lack of financial regulation, and structural and systemic inequities—laid the groundwork for bank bailouts and even more unchecked power in the financial industry. The misdiagnosis of the problem and investment in the wrong solutions pushed the United States into a deeper spiral of economic inequality with clear winners and losers.
The narrative implications of the COVID-19 pandemic could potentially follow suit. As people seek meaning in what feels like madness, we will identify heroes, winners, and villains, and use them to describe this challenging and transformative time. Narratives will emerge that rationalize—or ignore—certain decisions. If the narrative that China is to blame for the coronavirus takes hold and spreads, for example, it will trigger a dramatically different international response than a narrative that the world was unprepared and missed early warning signs that could have kept us safer. Whoever succeeds in crafting this narrative and making it stick will have the power to reimagine and remake our world for the foreseeable future.
As philanthropies and NGOs do their best to not only respond to immediate needs of those they serve, but also make sense of the larger picture, it’s important to recognize that there are three narrative opportunities currently in play: the story of what happened, the story of what now, and the story of what next. We have a chance to define the past, the present, and the future—and connect the three—in ways that set the world on a better course.
So, What Happened?
This narrative is the diagnosis of what really happened. It’s important because it determines who we blame, who we punish, who we see as casualties, and who we hold accountable. The diagnosis is critical to defining the problems we will set about solving. It answers the “should have” questions. Should we have designed responses and policies that were more aligned with science, for example, or should we have prioritized the economy?
Eventually, we’ll get accurate numbers, a timeline on response actions, and a catalog of who made what decisions when. The facts will stack up. But more importantly, someone will tell a story that sticks about what we think happened. It will be memorialized in the media, research, pundit analysis, and policy-maker rhetoric. The story will take hold in the public’s mind, true or not.
At the start of this stage, in any crisis, there’s a lot of finger-pointing. People with power often act predictably: First, deny there’s a problem. Then, deny there was anything they could have done about it. Next, shift the blame. Finally, acknowledge that “mistakes were made,” but offer no contrition or responsibility. Rinse, repeat.
In the United States, we’ve seen this happen with states not reporting essential health data, including racial and ethnic data, about who is getting and dying from COVID-19. One result is that it took much longer than it should have to see that Black and Native American communities, among others, were harder hit and to respond accordingly. When asked about the missing data, states said things like “not of immediate concern”—in other words, “not a problem.” Then there were excuses that providers didn’t share the information, as opposed to owning up to the fact that they weren’t required to share it. Translation: “not our problem.” Finally, after being pressured by groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), states started requiring this data, but rather than take responsibility for the earlier missteps, they patted themselves on the back for doing what they should have done in the first place.
We are far enough along to see that the “what happened” narrative could become a xenophobic story full of nativist othering. This version suggests the real villains are sinister foreigners. It anchors what happened in war metaphors and language, and would prove divisive and panic-inducing long after the pandemic ends.
Even though what really happened is factual, what sticks is perceptual. The story that stays with us matches our worldviews. It leaves us with a big historic lesson on what we can learn from a mistake so that we are not, in the words of philosopher George Santayana, “condemned to repeat it.” It becomes the story we tell and repeat. Today, vocal racial justice groups are uprooting one perceptual narrative that stuck in the United States. They are repudiating the “bad apple” narratives that have held individual police, rather than whole systems, responsible for violence against Black people and all communities of color. As we watch “defund police” gain momentum in the United States, we see a narrative emerging about systemic injustices, which sets the stage for new solutions. For example, Communities United for Police Reform notes that “monies have been invested in policing and criminalization instead of health, housing, and other community needs,” and is calling for the redirection of $1 billion from the New York City police budget to support for the “core needs for communities most impacted by police violence and the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The story of how this pandemic began and its immediate aftermath should focus on how we under-valued science, preparedness, health care, and working together. From there, imagine if leaders from every sector rallied around a “what happened” narrative that spotlighted essential front-line workers. The heroes would be workers who acted for the public good despite systemic challenges, assisted by elected officials whose decisions were led by their values and concern of human well-being, rather than culture wars. The villain would be the inequitable systems, rooted in white supremacy, that got the results they were set up to get. This narrative would force society to leave those systems in the dustbin of history and make something better.
To help advance a narrative that leads to systemic social change, leaders need to publicly share what they learned about the “why” behind what happened, and how it is changing their behavior and priorities now. Cleveland offers a blueprint. In early June, backed by United Way and the Urban League, Cleveland’s City Council declared racism a public health crisis. The announcement noted that racism, stemming from slavery and redlining, has led to poor health outcomes, particularly among Black people. It states that the pandemic put these disparities front and center and that the city plans to eliminate them.
What Now?
The “what now” narrative gives us marching orders today. People want to take action in a crisis, and it tells us what we can meaningfully do now. Amid this great resetting, we have a chance to rewrite the rules, and we should take every opportunity to throw out the bad ones. The “what now” narrative gives us a chance to move forward, not fall back.
At the moment, the dominant “what now” story is wavering between reopen and stay home. Here’s the problem with that: Reopen gives everyone a role in a collective mission to achieve a goal we all want. It says that it’s not just front-line workers who are brave—the rest of us can be too. Let’s go on about our lives and show that virus what’s what. In the face of a threat, people want to make a difference, not just sit there. Normally, that’s a good thing, but not here. If people see the goal as going out and getting “back to normal” as soon as possible, we could quickly lose the gains we made with isolation. But if we tell people to just stay home, we leave them without a purpose and unsure of their part in the solution.
A better “what now” would be “end the virus.” Everyone has a role. Some are caring for people, and others are foiling the virus by not spreading it around. Staying home can be an act of courage and sacrifice. One example of an organization contributing to this narrative is IllumiNative’s Warrior Up campaign, which emphasizes the importance of protecting communities and elders. The campaign frames social distancing as a form of protection—as a significant, meaningful action that everyone can take—and uses the words “warrior up” to suggest that those who practice social distancing are admirable.
We should also step away from shaping “what now” around “restarting the economy.” You mean the one that was growing inequality and reinforcing structural racism? Pass. Create better. PolicyLink offers a common-sense, street-smart vision of renewal, with a set of principles for leaders to follow.
What’s Next?
This is the most long-lasting part of the three narratives, and it’s also the hardest. Here we have to describe where we want to be in the future. We don’t just want to survive this pandemic. We want to thrive coming out of it. To live well in the just society that emerges, individuals, communities, and society—everyone—must transform.
A wise person asked me recently: What could you let change to make space for what’s new? That is a big thought. We have to let change happen to get to what’s new. First up, reject unnecessary constraints. In this moment, nearly every service is available virtually, carbon emissions are down, institutions are slashing red tape, and researchers are collaborating at an unprecedented scale to find a vaccine. Things we never thought possible are happening. What else is possible? As we move ahead, can work be more family-oriented? Can we use real estate creatively to end homelessness? Can we rebuild supply chains that make our food system more resilient?
It’s important that we don’t take possibilities off the table as we envision what’s next. There will be a rush for answers, but a big piece of the “what’s next” narrative is getting society to ask different questions and giving them space to explore. That happens when we:
- Remove constraints. What if we could pay for whatever we wanted?
- Challenge conventional wisdom. What if shareholder primacy isn’t a corporation’s sole purpose?
- Play out alternatives. We saw what happened when the world didn’t work together, what would it look like if we did?
- Identify barriers. What is keeping us from getting where we need to be?
When we do this, we can see different alternatives—like economist Simon Mair’s four post-COVID futures—and decide what to aim for. Leaders should explore these questions publicly, through virtual gatherings, media interviews, and social media posts. Carving out time and space to engage in honest conversations and imagine what could be will help move us out of fight or flight mode.
Everyone agrees that the world will never be the same. But what changes will depend on what we decide this pandemic meant, what we tell ourselves we did in the face of it, and ultimately how we came out of it. We will make meaning. Each of these three narratives can set us up well or set us back. Which of these narratives can your organization help shape?
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Read more stories by Kristen Grimm.