Confident Women by Tori Telfer

Author:Tori Telfer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 2020-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

“MAYBE I CAN GET A PIECE OF THE ACTION”

WHEN TRAGEDY STRIKES, MOST PEOPLE TRY TO HELP. THEY OPEN up their pocketbooks and overwhelm charities with their donations. After the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, people donated so much blood that the website of one blood bank crashed. At another blood bank, over six hundred people waited in line, longing to assuage even the smallest bit of suffering with their own bodies.

The CEO of the organization Charity Navigator, a man named Michael Thatcher, says that behavior like this represents the sort of exquisite communal empathy that practically defines us as human beings—but it’s complicated. “We care for people that are less fortunate than ourselves, and that is a vulnerability,” he says. “It’s a beautiful vulnerability. It’s also one that can be exploited.”

Because for every tragedy, there is an equal and opposite reaction: the scammers rise up. These are the tragediennes, always waiting in the wings for the world to implode. They perk up their ears at the sound of crisis; they smell blood in the water from miles away. There is perhaps no other type of person so callously detached from the body collective. For the tragediennes, a bombing is a real coup, and a tsunami is a fantastic opportunity for personal advancement.

“There’s a window of opportunity that happens when there’s a crisis,” Thatcher says. “Ill-intentioned individuals see that there’s this opening when hearts are opening and so are wallets, and think, Maybe I can get a piece of the action.” These “ill-intentioned individuals” have risen up after the shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, the massacre in Las Vegas, the Notre-Dame fire, the Boston Marathon bombing, the 2011 tsunami in Japan, the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, the coronavirus pandemic, and even—inexplicably—after the death of Robin Williams. So many scammers rose up after the Pulse shooting that the IRS had to issue a consumer alert warning people about them. As soon as the headlines are printed, the tragediennes appear, mascara already running down their cheeks. My husband has been shot! My nephew was in the burning building! My sister’s boyfriend’s best friend was sucked into the hurricane! Won’t someone, anyone, help me?

In a crisis, there’s no time to fact-check their statements. In fact, it feels inhumane to question them too much. Just in case, though, the tragediennes pack their stories full of details. I was there when the plane came crashing into the 78th floor of the tower at precisely 9:03 a.m.! As for any inconsistencies in their stories? They chalk those up to “trauma,” understanding instinctively that aligning themselves with catastrophe makes them impervious to criticism.

And they are the ultimate improvisers, ready at the drop of a hat to come up with a tale of woe. “To pull this off, you have to have some smarts,” says Thatcher. “You’ve got to be able to think fast and move.” None of us knows when the next fire will roar up or the next skyscraper will come falling down, so the tragediennes stay light on their feet, always ready to profit from the flames.

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