T
he perpetual outrage machine — even if you have never heard of it in such terms, if you are an American who goes on social media, watches cable news networks or is in any way in-tune with what is considered news at the moment, you are intimately familiar with it.
The perpetual outrage machine, at least as I define it, is the roughly one- to two-week cycle where something — or in its most recent iteration, someone — manages to add a new/chic/sexy/what-have-you spin on a pre-existing, hot-button issue in American society. Following routine reports on the matter, what happens next is a quick but intense fever of think pieces, debates and yes, outrage. Not only does the inciting incident inspire opinions in every single American, but they become — regardless of their respective backgrounds, upbringing or career — an expert on the subject, whether it’s race, gender fluidity, continuous global warfare, police brutality, etc.
I’m not going to talk about Rachel Dolezal too extensively in this piece, because quite frankly, I don’t care all that much. It is cliché to say that there are much more pressing issues in the world right now, but barring even that, there are much more pressing issues in American race relations right now, such as access to adequate education and job opportunities. I am thankful that when all media-circus hell broke loose, I was in an area of Tennessee where my cell phone service hovered between poor and nonexistent. When I returned home, I was more shocked that Christopher Lee had died (seriously, R.I.P.) than to learn that a white woman, for whatever twisted reason, had decided to pretend to be black and become the head of her local NAACP chapter.
The world is filled to the brim with bizarre tales of humans acting idiotically every day — the phrase “Florida Man” exists for a reason. The only basis for Dolezal’s ascension from slow-news-day headline to national debate is that race has (rightfully so) once more become a talking point for Americans. It certainly helps that Dolezal’s narrative is an easier one to package into a two-minute television bit, free of the complexities that pervade matters like the mass incarceration of black men or the wealth gap, but that is neither here nor there.
I said that I wasn’t going to talk about Dolezal, and I already feel like I’ve wasted too many keystrokes on the subject. After all, Dolezal is only a symptom, not the cause, of the latest installment in the ongoing perpetual outrage machine saga. Americans have long been prone to hysteria and fixating on singular issues — McCarthyism and the Red Scare are but one instance of the perpetual outrage machine rearing its ugly head pre-24/7 news cycle. At this point, we’re in too deep to stop it — Twitter hashtags, Tumblr and CNN have all but ensured that Americans will be forever locked in a constant argument with each other over petty issues that have no bearing on their day-to-day lives.
All I can do is invoke the sage wisdom of Timothy Leary: Drop out. When I returned to Florida, it was pretty apparent that #Dolezal was #abigdeal. It was refreshing to have not actively participated, or hell, even known about the latest instance of American exceptionalism to have captured the collective heart, mind and Facebook feed of the nation. It was a brief moment of clarity, allowed only by my lack of Internet access. In the event that I’d had access to my Facebook feed and gotten sucked in myself, it is not only probable but likely that I would have treated the matter with the same seriousness it has been granted elsewhere. It is easy to see when something wicked is making its way into the news cycle; next time, you’ll catch me in my bunker.
Zach Schlein is a UF political science junior. His column appears on Thursdays.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 6/18/15]
