“tHaNkS FoR MaKiNg mE Go vIrAl bEcAuSe i wAnTeD To gO ViRaL”
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They did remove the woman and not the victims and nobody got shot. So…progress??
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At the risk of not letting @fabiocosta0305 speak for themselves, I interpreted their post as “Americans get mad when, for example, they go to Brazil and the locals don’t speak English. Americans assume everyone in the world speaks English, and get mad when it isn’t true”
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No; I don’t consider it “progress” because nobody of color got arrested, shot and or killed.
Meanwhile, he surely decided to speak for all Americans by making such an assumptive overgeneralization.
Many of us are self-absorbed assholes… but not ALL of us are, all the time.
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I’m from the Amherst area, and grew up in the Pioneer Valley, where it, Northampton, and a number of other very lovely towns are located. Let me say for the record: This area is unquestionably one of the most progressive parts of the entire United States.
Yes, you can drive 30 minutes and be in some pretty (almost exclusively) white, pretty racist areas — true for literally any state in the country. But the Amherst-Northampton area and Pioneer Valley in general? It literally does not get any more “woke.”
This crazy lady? Definitely an anomaly — as is evident from the reaction of the other riders on the PVTA bus. During the school year, geez, it wouldn’t surprise me if half to two-thirds of the people on those busses were from foreign countries.
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As an aside; “Americans” is indeed how the rest of the English speaking world refers to people born in the U.S.A., speaking as a Canadian.
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To hell with this lady and anyone who thinks like her.
That said, when people store their sunglasses on the backs of their necks it really bugs me. Especially cops. I don’t know why, but it does. It’s like the fanny pack option for eyewear.
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I do not understand why people fight on this hill. I’ve never met a Canadian that wanted the term “American” extended to them, even among the most geographically-pedantic.
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If you’re looking for a means to reject the usage of “American” in this sense, there are some little-used terms that are more specific (akin to the Portuguese estado-unidense), like Usonian, Usanian, and United Statesian.
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Indeed. In every country I’ve lived in, judging Americans negatively is a common pastime. It’s mostly the toupee fallacy and confirmation bias- the loud, obnoxious, misbehaving American tourists are the ones that get noticed. Nobody gathers mental stats on the quiet, polite ones. It’s also not just Americans who fall victim to this. Every country I’ve been to has some complaint about “those people” from some neighboring region who are “universally the worst”.
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Well, there’s an awful lot of the Americas, and I don’t understand fighting on the hill of telling them what to want in this respect.
I would have said the French are probably #2 on that list, after USAians, of course. For the same reason.
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This Canadian sure doesn’t want to reclaim the term “American”. I have spoken with more than one person from Mexico and parts of South America who dislike the practice, though. I’m sympathetic to their feelings, but I think it’s safe to say that semantic pedantry ship sailed a loooong time ago. Anyone still standing on the dock holding a ticket had best move on.
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It made me deeply happy to watch this woman have her racist ass handed to her.
As someone who speaks another language (Japanese) I lived a life daily for three years in Japan where people were constantly surprised that I spoke their language- and treated me with nothing but kindness for it- but when I spoke English, I was never derided for it.
For the record there are many xenophobes in Japan, and it’s the same kind of thing- they’re usually out in the countryside away from major towns. Even though I went to some pretty remote places and really didn’t meet these people but I am certain that they are there.
I work with many people like this woman and it makes me want to cut my ears off of my head everyday. The sheer amount of ignorant racist redneck assholes I have met in my field boggles my mind, and someone even joked right before we left for New Year’s break to the one foreign born guy from Laos that works with us- “hey x, speak American or go home!”. Except he wasn’t joking but people just ignore him anyway.
While we are not all like this, there’s a reason the rest of the world thinks of Americans as loudmouthed idiots
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I meant to do that.
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I thought the best alternate description would be “Ugly American”:
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Just wondering, do Canadians generally consider Canada part of “North America”?
If so, I could see fair Canadian objections to the U.S. monopolizing the term “Americans” (not to mention objections from people in South and Central America).
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In my travels I’ve tried not to be the Loud American, and when you’re not, indeed, it’s a lot tougher for people to clock you without opening your mouth. The giveaways are more subtle–like wearing sunglasses everywhere.
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But i mean at 44 i do often feel elderly, so maybe it’s self-deprecating? lol.
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Sunglasses, baseball hats (especially worn backwards), t-shirts with American sports teams on them, sweatpants (or wearing pajamas outside).
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