At 8/22/16 11:40 AM, Gagsy wrote:
ZJ, I'm really fucking hurt that you think I am slagging off all Americans. I know and love many Americans and think them wonderful people. I want those good people to be mad because of this image that he is sending out to the rest of the world which is not the whole picture sure, but when he represents the USA he represents you.
Whoa, one person (Ryan Lochte) does not wholly represent the athletes of the United States let alone America as a whole. Furthermore, I find it insulting that you would tell us how to feel about one of our own, even though I do agree that he did send a bad image. It's no different if I would say if Greg Hardy represented NFL players as a whole with the domestic violence incident.
I'm not necessarily saying that you're wrong, but the problem is that you tell us that because of him, we end up with the "ugly Americans" tag over Lochte's fuckup. Don't think we are not cognizant about all this, even if we don't raise a total ruckus about this in public.
And the image he sent out strongly is that frat boy white privilege can still do what it wants when it wants, especially when in a poverty driven country dominated by non white citizens, because who won't want to believe the rich white man? That is why you should be livid in my opinion.
We know this, but this happens all the time, and it's not just with Americans mind you. I hate that when people rush to judgement about a group of people over one person and think that we're not cognizant about this, just because on a macro public level we don't get fuming about it. Not to mention that all the evidence does point to Lochte making it all up, though beforehand, it would've been far more indicting of Rio's security that Lochte and a few others got robbed considering that their crime is rampant.
You're right for every Ryan Lochte there is a Simone Biles who I myself have gushed over in these games but history remembers cheaters and liars more, seriously. To use a British example (least you think I'm being a xenophobe) I couldn't tell you what medals Britain's own Dwain Chambers ever won but I can certainly tell you that he was a drug cheat who rightly got banned from the sport. And just look at the Russian athletes who were allowed to compete in these games - boos everywhere even if those particular athletes were not caught using banned substances.
That may be, but in our case, we have Michael Phelps (before his DUIs) and Katie Ledecky to name a few that are model citizens that represent us. We have so many athletes that are successful enough to keep one bad apple from spoiling the bunch, I'll bet that more people know about Carl Lewis than Ben Johnson (the Canadian T&F star who doped in the '88 Games) for example. I'm glad that you are able to know that for every one Ryan Lochte, there are hundreds of our athletes who do the right thing.
Shame on you for not realising what I'm trying to say without getting all defensive and mean about it.
Don't think that we didn't realize this, but you didn't exactly give very much context with your first post. It's kind of hard not to be defensive when someone paints a broad brush about us because of the actions of one person, even if the do represent us in a sporting event, particularly out of hundreds. I'm not disagreeing with you that he did send us a bad image and considering who Lochte paint himself as, it does looks worse, but when people from the outside throw aspersions at us over the actions of a few on a global stage, we have to retort simply on principle alone.
