I couldn’t believe that more than two months had passed since I’d interviewed my sister. Although I didn’t have to start at the very beginning of my learning curve when it came to setting up the USB mics, recording, transcribing the audio file, editing the file and exporting it to be embedded into this blog post, I almost forgot the details of how to do it. Almost.
This time around the whole process went much smoother than the first time. I spent far less time beating my head against the wall, which meant I didn’t dwell in trial and error land. I actually fine tuned my editing skills. I still have room for improvement, but this clip is much cleaner than the one I edited when I interviewed my sister.
The best part: since my roommate, Stephanie, always talks about narcissists, AKA “narcs,” I’ve got plenty of opportunity to interview her for a multi-part series.
As an added bonus, here’s the edited transcript:
Teresa Roberson 0:00
Hello, Stephanie.
Stephanie 0:02
Hello, Teresa.
Teresa Roberson 0:04
How you doing today?
Stephanie 0:06
Well, you know, I do narc research and race research. So, as well as can be expected.
Teresa Roberson 0:14
You know, you say "as well as to be expected," but I'm thinking "Oh, is that why you're mad? Is that why you're mad every day?"
Stephanie 0:22
No, dude. And being able to see so much the connectivity between racism and narcissism. What I'm learning through my research is that a lot of people's trauma behavior, make sense. Like a lot of people who do things that that might irritate a lot of people. There is usually a very simple reason why they're doing it. Well, I say "simple," but basically, there is a reason why they do it. And you can actually try sift through their behavior.
Teresa Roberson 1:02
When did you start doing your research on narcissism?
Stephanie 1:06
A friend of mine sent me a video with Dr. Ramani Durvasula last year and said, "Hey, you should watch this video." And it was about narcissism and Dr. Ramani Durvasula is the most well-known scholar on narcissism and I watched it and I was like, "Oh, dear goodness." And I listened to that video, while simultaneously reading How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr. And I noticed the patterns, the ups and downs, the boredom, the thrill seeking. Everything about this is almost every single page I've been reading from this American history book and the more I read about history, and the more I see what the plans for the future are, the more I see the patterns, especially in our current paradigm in the United States.
Teresa Roberson 2:14
So, what are the narcissistic patterns that you've noticed?
Stephanie 2:19
So, the biggest ones that I've seen are control without responsibility because narcissism at its core is an impulse problem. And so, what was the originating impulse problem? Some European sailors came to the continents, saw something they liked, and wanted it. Well, indigenous people were like, yeah, we live here. Yet have some food, get rested and peace out. And the European sailor was like, “You know what? No, I don't feel like doing that.” And so, the different indigenous groups were like “Yeah, ya know, but we didn't, no this is, this is where we live, and it's fine that you want to come visit, but you don't understand how this works. And there's even research that's just been shown that says because of the quote unquote exploration that occurred, that's actually what set off climate change, ie you basically had a whole bunch of people come and take over an area, not knowing how it works, not knowing the ecosystem patterns and how to sustain them and broke it. Basically, the indigenous people kept trying to say “no.” And the European settlers just said, "No, you don't get to say ‘no.’" They changed laws. They change circumstances. The most obvious permutation is ironically, our neighborhood with Domain Riverside, ie, people live here. People have lives here. And because somebody sent a nice PDF to the city council and the planning commission, well, that's the end of our neighborhood. We're just gonna go ahead and add Domain Riverside. So, control without responsibility is the biggest element of narcissism that I've seen throughout my research.
Teresa Roberson 4:47
So how is it that some foreigner can come to an indigenous land and say, "This is the law."
Stephanie 4:56
And that is what people have basically failed to see. For example, we are having a pipeline struggle both with Canada and in South Dakota. And the reservations are, of course, the last vestiges of these “foreign countries,” for lack of a better definition. And they've basically said, “No, you actually don't get to run this pipeline through here. We live here. This will destroy our water when we're done here.” Yes. And the way you do it is by force. And so, one of the reasons why the reservations got so much, why "reservation" is even a term that we're familiar with, is because a foreigner refused to hear a "no," knew that they were not entitled to it, but decided that because they wanted it, it was theirs. They used force and basically decimated hundreds of thousands of people in favor of their perception of reality because another part of narcissism is a false reality.It'syou have one vision of how the world should be, whether or not the world is actually that, is not necessary and it's not relevant. But because of your vision, you're entitled to, to fulfill your vision, even if it comes at the expense of someone else.
Teresa Roberson 6:33
All right, so you talked about force. Is it just weapons?
Stephanie 6:37
It is not just weapons. And it's interesting that you said the law because what happened during the quote unquote, American Revolution. Well, basically, some foreigners came over, decided I see it, I want it, it's mine. And then they crafted this Constitution, which included eminent domain, which says that the government can seize land if it's for the good of the country. Well, that's basically saying, "I know you said 'no,' but my 'yes' is more powerful. And I just changed the law. And because I changed the paradigm, and refused to acknowledge your 'no,' it's actually 'yes' now." And if you're like, "Look, but Stephanie, that makes no sense." You're right, it does make no sense. And that is what is happening right now. We're kind of in an era of disillusionment, where everything about the propaganda about the founding fathers and fighting for freedom that had nothing to do with the creation of this nation. This was all about, I see it, I want it, it's mine. And they put all of the elements they created a heck of a marketing campaign that basically said, "Oh, yes, and because we created these laws, your laws are irrelevant. I'm sorry, we have guns and that backs up our laws. It's kind of like the College Board was created so that black people couldn't go to college. And people will often say, "Oh, but we need the SATs and the GREs because how would we know that everybody's worthy to go to college? And it's like, you realize that college was not mainstream. And that was not that was something that everybody could or could not choose to do. And when black people finally realized, "Hey, you know, we like to nerd out. Let's all go to school too. They then said, "Well, we don't want you here. So, we're going to create this barrier that basically says, "Oh, you can't get prep, you can't learn how to do this, then you won't be here." So, when the dominant narrative basically adds a barrier, or shifts the paradigm, that's basically telling people that, you know, with enough propaganda, people get used to the idea that that's the way it always was. And that just makes sense. And what is so frustrating to so many people actually in the dominant narrative now is everybody's like, but we literally had no right to do all of those things. People just did them. They just did them and then they created a fake piece of paper and created a fake system that said, "No, the answer is ‘yes’ now." That was backed by force. So that is the narcissus’s greatest tool, their reality and their demand that everybody adhere to it.
Teresa Roberson 10:00
Thank you so much, Stephanie, for at least explaining the beginnings of your narcissism research.
Stephanie 10:06
Oh yeah. Don't worry, there'll be more.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai