Anti-American sentiment in SL forums

People are much too quick to throw the word bigotry around. If someone hates me as an individual without knowing me at all simply because I'm from the US that would be bigotry. If, on the other hand, someone just has strong negative opinions about US culture or foreign policy or whatever, that just makes them someone with strong opinions. The accuracy of the opinions doesn't really matter. It might be ignorance or insight, but it's not bigotry in my opinion.

Oh I understand the localized phenomenon (believe me as a Floridian I understand it) - it is just something I see in the forums particularly acutely. It's generally the same people over and over saying the same tired crap. I just wonder how tolerated a bunch of posts targetted at people of other countries would be.

People are much too quick to throw the word bigotry around. If someone hates me as an individual without knowing me at all simply because I'm from the US that would be bigotry. If, on the other hand, someone just has strong negative opinions about US culture or foreign policy or whatever, that just makes them someone with strong opinions. The accuracy of the opinions doesn't really matter. It might be ignorance or insight, but it's not bigotry in my opinion.

All humans are asses....... its in our nature.
We can strive to be less of an ass
but even the best of us are asses.


Im not sure if theres a point to this post in this thread, I just felt like saying it, cause I'm an ass.

No lorelei I understand what Chip is saying. If you simply says oh well he's an American that makes him no good .... that is bigotry. But say we have a solid idealism that conflicts with another country and said country doesn't like us because of that then they have a defined answer as to why they dislike America not neccesarily just because you are an American.

But when people talk about arrogant, fat, lazy, spoiled Americans, that's not a sentiment directed at our government, and that's what raises the hackles.

Thank you... and that's why I pointedly did not refer to politics in my post, but instead on culture.

Though you could make the argument that the government is the people, we all know that a lot of us don't participate in politics at all.

I think, to some degree, we all participate in the culture. That's what makes it a different case, IMO.

Having read this over however many bloody pages it has got to... one thing that annoys me more than the lazy ignorant crap about Americans being fat and ignorant and so on is the perpetual harping on about how awfully unfair the rest of the world is being to Americans by certain Americans. I can't count the number of times I've seen people respond to anything criticising US foreign policy by saying "oh you're just jealous of our success, you Europeans are all anti-semites anyway, you've got nothing to talk about".

Frankly, there is a large amount of prejudice - or simply self-obsessed ignorant assumption - I've had across the board from US citizens. I'm not just talking about being asked dozens of times "so are you going home to your family for Thanksgiving?" (no, fucker, I live an entirely different country and can't afford to for a start, and strangely enough we don't do Thanksgiving in England) and that sort of simple cultural dumbness, although, let me tell you, it really starts to fucking grate after a while. And that sort of thing does build up to critical mass eventually.

No, I'd say it's the constant assumptions; every time you turn on the news there's some entirely US-centric report, nothing pays any attention to anywhere else in the world apart from how it relates to the US. Foreign news is all about what the decisions made by government X mean in relation to the latest pointless bit of one-party chicanery that's going on in Washington. What does statement Y by President Z mean for the Republicans? Who cares? Does anyone really think President Z gives a monkey's?

Now, that sort of thing is fine if it keeps to itself, internal political nonsense is something that occurs in every country - but when one is faced on the internet with people for whom that is the entirety of international politics, who think that the major part of everything is how it relates to the US and whatever you're talking about, you must be relating it to the US, that gets irritating. For instance, does anybody really think that anyone outside the US cares how many US soldiers are dying in Iraq? Fine, yeah, you get annoyed about that, I would too if it was my friends and family, but to everyone else it's just soldiers being killed while invading a country.

And here's your obligatory defensive tail-off: I lived and worked in the US for two years just recently, my SO was American, I spend a lot of time criticising stupid generalisations about the US (e.g. it's a combination of Friends, Deliverance and the Dukes Of Hazzard), I know and love many US citizens, blah de blah de blah. I only put this in because somebody will doubtless say something otherwise.

And on the other hand... it's really fucking annoying to be blamed, an as American citizen, for what another country chooses to air on their news, or what trends that country choose to follow.

I've seen numerous times in this thread how people dislike America because our trends or culture are taking over another country's. Is it Americans living in your country that are forcing people to buy Levis and Cadillacs and Mountian Dew? I doubt it. Take some responsibility for your own culture. It's not Americans over-running other cultures with our own, it's others wanting to be like America by purchasing, in MASS quantities, our culture, and then blaming us for producing it, as if they had no choice in the matter.

Frankly, there is a large amount of prejudice - or simply self-obsessed ignorant assumption - I've had across the board from US citizens. I'm not just talking about being asked dozens of times "so are you going home to your family for Thanksgiving?" (no, fucker, I live an entirely different country and can't afford to for a start, and strangely enough we don't do Thanksgiving in England) and that sort of simple cultural dumbness, although, let me tell you, it really starts to fucking grate after a while. And that sort of thing does build up to critical mass eventually.

Cadillacs are generally illegal

Huh?

I exaggerate. But nobody buys American cars outside of the US, which has gone into a weird SUV spiral. I have seen a few around but in general, the American car market is strictly internal.

Actually, no. China is going gangbusters for American cars -- or GM, at least. In the first quarter last year, GM made 335,000 vehicles there, mostly for local Asian sales. This year, it was 470,000. That's a 28.7 percent increase.

And its Latin American/Africa/Middle East segment in the first quarter increased to 193,000 vehicles from 185,000 last year -- a more modest 4.3 percent increase.

Europe is admittedly a soft spot, with production nearly unchanged.

Yep, I'm a car geek. Your comment on illegal Cadillacs threw me

PS.... remember, "American cars" now includes Vauxhall and Jaguar, too As well as Holden, Opel, Saab and Daewoo.

American corperations will sell where there's a market. If there's no market for their product, they'll pull out. They do it in America all the time. Unless the other countries are buying, it's not worth our cost to try and sell it there. If everyone in Country A is running around in American cars and American trends, blame the consumers of Country A, not Americans. Blaming Americans for other people buying their products is just as lazy and irresponsible as Americans who blame foreign markets for us buying foreign made cars or merchandise. If we buy, it's either because the product is made better, cheaper, or both. Our fault and their gain, because they did it right.

But the new Volkswagon "Unpimp your ride" commercials are cool enough to make me look toward German engeneering. Ja!

Actually, no. China is going gangbusters for American cars -- or GM, at least. In the first quarter last year, GM made 335,000 vehicles there (in Asia/Pacific), mostly for local Asian sales. This year, it was 470,000. That's a 28.7 percent increase.

And its Latin American/Africa/Middle East segment in the first quarter increased to 193,000 vehicles from 185,000 last year -- a more modest 4.3 percent increase.

Europe is admittedly a soft spot, with production nearly unchanged.

Yep, I'm a car geek. Your comment on illegal Cadillacs threw me

PS.... remember, "American cars" now includes Vauxhall and Jaguar, too As well as Holden, Opel, Saab and Daewoo.

(edited twice because sometimes I'm a doodoohead)