"I wish this medal was a brain". Okay, Lochte didn't say that here. But he should have. Image: Getty Ryan Lochte is one of the greatest swimmers in the world. And it's a good thing too, because he has virtually no other talent. Thinking clearly isn't his thing; a compilation of interviews he's given shows he's not a particularly thoughtful person, nor does he come off particularly well off the cuff. One clip shows him telling an interviewer: "What I was always good at was letting things go through, like, through one ear, out the other.” Math isn’t exactly his strong suit either. In another interview in the same clip, the interviewer asks him what seven times four is equal to. His response: “21”. He may have the muscle mass to win 12 Olympic medals, but he barely has the brain matter to count to 12.
If all this sounds like I’m being too hard on the guy, it won’t after you hear about his destructive antics in Rio. Far from being a kind, considerate soul during those moments when all his neurons are firing correctly, Lochte all too often becomes a pompous, vandalism-prone jerk. The episode in question took place about mid-way through the Olympics. After a night of partying on Saturday the 13th, Lochte and his merry band of fellow dude-bros from the US swim team stopped at a gas station on their way back to the Olympic village. Presumably intoxicated, they proceeded to urinate on some of the walls, destroy the door of a bathroom, a soap dispenser, and a sign at the gas station. Understandably unhappy with the situation, private security demanded repayment for the damage done, at one point threatening Lochte and the other athletes with a gun. But after the episode played out, Lochte filed a police report in which he neglected to list the acts of vandalism he himself committed, categorizing the incident not as a rightful, if jarring, request for payback for those actions, but instead as armed robbery. Though initially inclined to believe Lochte’s account, after video surfaced of the event, authorities decided instead to go after the four men who had caused the trouble and then lied about it to authorities. Two of these four were intercepted while they were about to leave the country on a flight back to the states. But Lochte himself was long gone, brushing the incident aside with a brief apology on Instagram. The incident blew up into an international scandal, with negative reactions in both the Brazilian and US media. The New York Post (of all places) labeled Lochte as “the ugly American”, others cited the incident as proof positive of his white privilege. But there’s another lesson that can be gleaned from this, too: being a jerk is something that carries through all language barriers. It’s interesting to try to picture the scene at the gas station. Though there is video of the event, there’s no audio – presumably a great deal of shouting in Portuguese was involved. But beyond this, the whole episode begs the question of just how much the two parties: the boozed up swimmers and the security guards, actually understood of one another. The vandalism element, presumably, is an action that requires no translation. But is it reasonable to then assume that the swimmers, despite their lack of Portuguese skills, could then infer what exactly was going on? Specifically, if you destroy a gas station bathroom, people will probably want you to pay for it? The answer will probably have less to do with any high-minded linguistic calculations and more to do with the blood-alcohol levels of the gentlemen involved with the vandalizing. But, despite this factor, and Lochte’s reasonable assertion that the language barrier played a role, it still would be reasonable to assume that, even if you don’t speak a word of Portuguese, vandalizing a bathroom is seen as a bad thing by its owners. And if they ask you for money after you do it, that doesn’t exactly qualify as robbery. In this case, Lochte’s thick skull might work in his favor. If he ever faces any legal consequences for this, his demonstrable denseness can be put forward as evidence that he really had no idea that “fake police” waving guns at him had nothing to do with his bathroom rampage. Of course, this ploy would require him to have a team of much more mentally adept lawyers at his disposal (and as a 12 time gold medalist, he probably does). But for regular people, less likely to be equipped with gold medals, a smaller than average brain, and a general lack of empathy, there’s a lesson to be learned here too. Even the best intentioned American tourist will probably not be able to learn Portuguese in a matter of days or even weeks before visiting Brazil, or any other language that might be necessary for other travel plans. But that doesn’t mean that you have an excuse to throw common decency out the window. Though customs can vary from country to country, it’s a safe bet that ravaging gas station facilities is viewed in an extremely negative light, no matter where you are on the planet. But, to a certain extent, the opposite holds true too. Go out of your way to be understanding of locals, even if you don’t speak their language, and your time spent in foreign countries is much more likely to be a pleasant, enjoyable experience. |
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