It’s admittedly been several years since I last took a vocabulary quiz. However, a quick web search reassured me that my long-time understanding of the word “donate”—to give something without wanting anything in exchange—is still correct.
Consequently, I found myself both confused and concerned by the Concord Monitor’s recent story about California native Rebecca Davis’s “donation” of the first edition of Our Nig: Sketches in the Life of a Free Black to the Black Heritage Trail of NewHampshire.
As the monitor reports, Davis found the book, written by freed slave Harriet Wilson (1825-1900), while settling her late husband’s estate. Davis apparently “tried to donate” it but failed to“make a deal” with the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.
Undeterred, she then took her ware to the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, for whom the book was “not an outright gift but was sold…for a ‘very generous price.’” A price so generous that the book’s “acquisition” was only made possible by two long-time supporters of the Trail, who “quickly helped with payment of the book.”
We want to thank Mathew Conlin for this Op-Ed.
Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
Payment? Price? Deal? Sold?
Either the dictionary has deceived me, or the Monitor is trying to with its liberal (pun intended) use of the word “donate” to describe Davis’ and the Trail’s transaction. I’m left concluding the latter and an attempt at outright trickery—defined as deception by stratagem—on the part of the Monitor.
Which brings us to the most crucial question: why?
Why would the Monitor misrepresent another wise innocuous financial transaction as an act of DEI-inspired benevolence? The answer, I think, has nothing to do with nobility of character and everything to do with narcissism.
In their 2020 paper “Signaling Virtuous Victimhood as Indicators of Dark Triad Personalities” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers Ekin Ok, Yi Qian, Brendan Strejcek, and Karl Aquino discuss six studies they conducted to better understand virtuous victimhood, a term used to describe the behavior of people who emit dual signals of victimhood and virtue.
As the researchers explain, “the ability to extract resources from others through the use of signaling is maximized when observers perceive a signaler as being a virtuous victim.” When describing the traits of those who tend to signal virtuous victimhood, “communal narcissism,” they report, “was a significant and positive predictor.”
This brings us back to the Monitor. A story about someone selling a book written by one of the first African-American novelists in North America certainly seems to check the victimhood box, but it’s hardly virtuous. If, on the other hand, that book was donated?
Jackpot.
