Appeared in the October 13th issue of the Lansing City Pulse

America Keeps Americaning

So I was having a difficult time nailing down a topic to write about this week.

Not because there was a shortage of news. Apparently, the universe has decided that what Americans really need is a fresh outrage every morning before we’ve even finished our coffee.

Frankly, I know I’m not alone in my anxiousness as we head toward the midterms.

I’m increasingly feeling like everything is unpredictable. More unpredictable than I can ever remember. Every day seems to bring another headline that makes me wonder whether we’re watching a country unravel in real time or whether we’ve simply become so numb that we no longer recognize what unraveling looks like.

Then I started hearing more and more about the seven fraternity brothers at Cornell University.

And here we go again. Because apparently, despite decades of evidence, we still have to ask the same questions.

What was she wearing? What was she drinking? Why was she there? Why didn’t she leave, fight back, scream or say something sooner?

At what point did we decide that the person who was allegedly harmed should be the one put on trial? I thought the people who were supposed to protect her would actually protect her.

Particularly administrators at a university—a place of higher learning. A prestigious institution. A place that presumably spends a considerable amount of time teaching young people about ethics, responsibility and consequences.

Apparently, there was a typo in the curriculum. Instead of protecting her, they protected the boys. And shame on me for thinking this university might have higher standards. I guess I’m just delusional.

Because despite everything happening around us, some stupid, stubborn part of me continues to believe that we are evolving. That we are progressing. That somewhere underneath all the greed, corruption, tribalism and political bullshit, there is still a desire to become a more enlightened society.

I keep hoping that maybe we’ll eventually look at the mistakes we’ve made and say, “You know what? That was awful. Let’s never do that again.” Instead, America seems to respond with, “Hold my beer.”

America keeps Americaning. This is tradition. And apparently, tradition is sacred.

This isn’t a college problem. It isn’t a campus problem, Cornell problem or even exclusively a university problem.

It’s a patriarchy problem. It’s an American problem. And at its root, it is a problem with men. Men don’t hold men accountable.

We protect our buddies. We protect our organizations, reputations and institutions. And when someone finally asks why nobody protected the woman who was actually harmed, we act confused.

Michigan State University should never have another scandal after Larry Nassar.

Never. That should have been the moment when every institution in America collectively looked in the mirror and said, “Never again.” Instead, apparently, “never again” means “until the next time.”

And then there’s our president. When asked about Cornell, he gave us the familiar song and dance: smear the prosecutor, attack the people pursuing accountability and find a way to make the people accused of wrongdoing the victims.

Because apparently, accountability is now something you can simply yell at until it goes away. It’s almost comforting in its predictability. Almost.

And while we’re talking about things that have become predictable, let’s not forget another mass school shooting. Another school. Another shooter. Another collection of terrified children and grieving parents.

Another political argument about everything except the one thing that should be obvious: We have created a country where children have to practice what to do when someone comes into their school with a gun. And we call that freedom.

Think about that for a moment. We have somehow reached the point where a child knowing how to hide from an armed person is considered a reasonable part of an American education.

But apparently suggesting that maybe we should do something about the guns is where we draw the line. Because freedom. Of course.

The funny thing about America is that we seem to have developed a very selective definition of freedom. We are incredibly passionate about the freedom to own a gun. Less passionate about the freedom of a woman to walk into a fraternity house without becoming a victim.

Very passionate about protecting the rights of the accused. Less passionate about protecting the person who was harmed.

Very passionate about individual liberty … until that liberty belongs to someone we don’t like.

And extremely passionate about protecting institutions, especially when those institutions are protecting the “wrong” people.

So if I had to come up with a new American slogan, perhaps it would be: America: Get a gun. Rape women. Protect the powerful. Tradition dies hard here.

Maybe that sounds extreme. Maybe it is. But then again, we’ve become pretty damn good at making the extreme ordinary.

We normalize sexual violence. We normalize victim blaming. We normalize men protecting men, institutions protecting themselves, children being murdered at school.

We normalize politicians attacking prosecutors. We normalize corruption, cruelty and the inexplicable. And then we slap a flag on it and call it freedom.

We may not be free from harm, but apparently, we’re still free to harm. And maybe that’s the most American thing of all.

I still want to believe we can be better. I still want to believe that somewhere beneath all the noise, there is a country capable of looking at itself honestly and saying, “This isn’t who we want to be.”

But perhaps that’s the delusional part of me talking. Because America keeps Americaning.

And maybe the hardest truth isn’t that America has failed to evolve. Maybe it’s that we keep calling the failure “a tradition.”

And as long as we do that, we can keep congratulating ourselves for being the greatest country on Earth while asking the people we failed to explain why they weren’t careful enough. Asking why they drank too much or trusted the wrong person.

Why they went to the wrong place, or didn’t fight harder, scream louder or protect themselves. Anything, apparently, except asking the people who did the harm why they did it.

Anything except asking the institutions that protected them why they chose the institution over the victim. Or asking ourselves why, after all these years, we’re still having the same damn conversation.

Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I’m delusional. But I still believe an enlightened society is possible. I just wish America would stop making me prove it.

Did Epstein really kill himself?

Please email me at lansingallstar@gmail.com

Ann Developer Siegle, Administrator

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