Ryan Lochte - The Latest Ugly American

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Okay, actually, one more blog entry on another American athlete before I return my thoughts and writing back to the trip. Yesterday, I wrote about Colin Kaepernick, who set off a storm of controversy here in the United States simply for not standing during the national anthem. Frankly, I am not entirely sure why the national anthem is played before sporting events, and I will certainly admit to not understanding how worked up people get over someone not standing for the national anthem. Really, it does not seem like that big of a deal to me, and it betrays a certain arrogance and sense of entitlement by many Americans.

Today, however, I turn my attention to another athlete who Americans really should feel ashamed of right at this moment. I am speaking, of course, about Ryan Lochte.

For a country that takes excessive pride in the favorable medal count, and in often being first among nations in terms of how many medals have been won, Lochte, by all rights, should have been a source of pride for Americans. His 12 medals, which ranks as among the most impressive achievements in Olympic history. and they include six gold medals, as well as three silvers and three bronzes. That is a very impressive collection of medals that he won for the country, and it ranks second among swimmers to Michael Phelps, making Lochte one of the most decorated Olympians in history.

Yet, when you think of this man right now, that is not the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, it may never be the thing that first comes to mind whenever Lochte's name is mentioned.

You see, instead of feeling grateful for his incredible success, or feeling blessed for his athletic gifts, or simply for being a part of something as big and, in some ways, beautiful as the Olympic games, Lochte falsely claimed that he and three other American athletes (all swimmers) were basically robbed at gun point in Brazil during the recent Olympics there. The problem is that his story did not match up with the truth, as he left out a few parts, such as that he had been intoxicated, and had committed acts of vandalism. Lochte quickly downplayed his own initial story, suggesting he had been exaggerating a little bit.

Getting drunk is itself nothing particularly heinous, and doing stupid things while drunk is also forgivable. We all lose control at times, all fall to temptation, and we all do stupid things from time to time. However, he deliberately exaggerated his story in order to...well, nobody seems quite sure why he did what he did. He seems to have wanted to garner sympathy, even though he left some of those most important little details out. And, for all intents and purposes, he became the most recent face of the ugly American, essentially disgracing himself and his nation, as he tried to capitalize on the news reports of the security problems that Brazil has faced with security for these games, and making himself look like the innocent victim.

It reminds me of another incident, now largely forgotten, where American athletes went overseas and came across as very entitled and arrogant. Back in 2008, a few American athletes went to Beijing wearing masks, as some form of protest against the high levels of pollution there. Just one thing, however: China had then only just overtaken the United States as the world's biggest polluter, and let us remember that they have four times the population that Americans do. Also, at the time, the United States had one of the most pathetic presidents in office, and among other things, he had an abysmal record in terms of the environment. Yet, these athletes remained quiet on the home front. They did not take those masks in front of the White House to protest President Bush's detrimental environmental policies. Hell, they did not even speak out on it, to my understanding. But they sure were in a hurry to put those masks on when they went overseas, essentially as guests to the host country of the Olympic Games that year.

Frankly, I have grown somewhat tired of the Olympic Games and, in particular, how they tend to be covered here in the United States. You can bet that there will considerable criticism over the preparation for the games, at least if the host country is not an English-speaking country. There was massive criticism of the Athens games in 2004, even though people forgot that the original Olympic Games were from Greece. There was similar bad press for the Beijing games, the Sochi winter games in 2014, and now, the Rio games this year. The London games were largely spared the negative press, however, as were the Winter games in Vancouver in 2010. And, of course, there was only praise for the Olympic preparation when they were hosted by American cities. Plus, the games always focus almost exclusively on American athletes and American success, which is limited and limiting, and reinforces the kind of excessive nationalism that sees people get all worked up when an American athlete like Kaepernick takes a stand by not standing during the national anthem. 

Every country has their problems, and Brazil certainly has it's fair share of problems. Why, at the moment, it seems that there was just the equivalent of a coup d'etat there, with the president being impeached. And the displacement of poor people for these games really was a tragedy, and a story worth hearing. However, too often, this was done by Americans who looked down on their noses towards those backwards Brazilians, or similarly, towards those backwards Russians or Chinese or Greeks before them. This is particularly despicable to me considering how quickly Americans seem to forget the problems that their own country both faces and creates. Domestically, we have seen major incidents of police brutality and the excessive and unjustified use of deadly force that disproportionately targeted black men. And, lest we forget, the United States remains one of the world's biggest polluters, and has increasingly grown more comfortable with human rights violations. And then, there was the whole Iraq invasion thing that the world vehemently opposed, and which proved to be unjustified, but which Americans conveniently forgot.

Speaking of forgetting, Ryan Lochte is doing his best to try and get people to forget about the bad news that he himself so recently generated through his own bad decisions. He received a commercial endorsement, of all things, from a crime prevention company. And most recently, it was announced that he will be participating on this year's edition of "Dancing With the Stars," in a rather transparent attempt to change his image. What is worse is that many Americans, if not most Americans, will indeed quickly forget, and probably will not feel that there is much of anything to forgive. That is part of the problem with Americans, and how they are viewed around the world. When other people around the world do things, it confirms the image held by many Americans that there is something wrong with them. But when stories like this come out, they are seen as isolated incidents, and the individual responsible is simply forgiven, as Lochte surely will be. Perhaps, the media already is leaning towards forgiving and forgetting. 

I really wish that our coverage was more balanced, and that Americans were not so quick to pull the trigger of mindless criticisms of other countries, while ignoring their own problems (and the list of problems mentioned above are just some of the major issues that the country is facing). It would be nice, at the very least, if athletes like Lochte did not go out of their way to draw attention to themselves, and to become the new face of the Ugly American that the world now has to listen to on the nightly news. To me, Lochte's actions might not discredit his performance in his sport, as was the case with Lance Armstrong, although he still cast a shadow over himself, and the country that he is supposed to represent, by essentially lying, and making sure that he got the maximum amount of press coverage in so doing. 

Shame on him.

And shame on those Americans who will too easily forgive and forget without serious thought as to the kind of damage that this athlete will have done, thus allowing future athletes free license to basically make similar errors in judgment. Lochte may be forced to go to Brazil and spend some time in jail for what he did. Whether or not that is going too far, the discussion centering around him should revolve around punishment for his essentially admitting to lying, rather than what commercial endorsements he is about to get, or what reality television show he will be participating in. And that, perhaps, is yet another problem that the United States has, and it is one that does damage to America's image around the world.