An Island’s Reputation

This post was originally posted at Aruba Girls Weblog

An Island’s Reputation

I’ve been spending a good portion of the weekend on a message board, trying to defend Aruba’s name and honor, and help answer questions anyone might have about Aruba, police system. Most of the posters were normal, reasonable people. There were several, however that were not.

Let me hasten to point out that the moderators of this site are excellent, and they allow a free discussion to flow, banning the most egrerious of trolls inmediately and generally try to get everyone to stay on topic.

There were moments, however, where I was fully expected to get banned when I saw red after reading the words ‘cover-up’ and ‘corruption’ for the umpteenth time. The arrogance of these types of posters is amazing. If an apparant crime against a high-profile Aruban took place in, let’s say, England, I don’t think I would start shouting these words so soon. I wouldn’t start attacking all police officials and prosecutors because the system is different there, or that they are moving at a different pace.

There I was, in any case, trying to answer questions about dumpsters and grey dust and press conferences and translating, all the while defending the cops and prosecutors.

Which leads me to ask myself, why was I so zealous? It’s not as if I love the cops here. They aren’t perfect, they can be incompetent at times, yes. The prosecution can be overzealous and sloppy. So why was I posting that ‘everyone could stick their cover-up and corruption theories up Clinton and Nixon’s asses’? [Cringe]

I think it’s because the cops are our husbands, wives, sons, brothers, nieces, friends. They are us. They are me.

And by God, I’m not corrupt, and the sooner this is over, the better it is for everyone involved. We’re tired of Nancy Grace implying our ineptness, while Nancy Grace knows jack shit about our legal system. Having Fox let Bill O’Reilly us a bunch of prostitutes and criminals while paying Mark Fuhrman to share his infinite wisdom with the masses is beyond the pale.

We like America. We like their people (mostly), we like their attitude, their movies, music, products. But right now, disillusionment is setting in heavily with these clowns that they’ve sent here and carry the title of reporters. We have Geraldo here, for crying out loud.

We’re just getting tired of being the scapegoat of a young girl making a foolish decision.