I use “USian.” The people of Canada and the southern lands haven’t fallen into the same (hopefully temporary) insanity as the US and don’t deserve to be tarred with the same brush.
Only if by “woke” you mean they don’t air their racism in public.
I have never heard anyone from Canada, Mexico, etc (or South America, for that matter) seriously refer to themselves as “Americans”. Only Americans (people from the US) do that. It would be on par with an American calling themselves Columbian. It would be correct, for certain values of correct, but weird as fuck and deliberately misleading.
That being said, it’s always a little jarring when I hear people (usually Brits) refer to the US as “America”. As in, “what is the capital of America?” Americans call themselves Americans and their country the US.
It’s second only to the golf visor upside down on the back of ones head in terms of douchey headwear, IMNSHO.
I would never pass for American then. I don’t give a damn about sports, never wear hats, and feel strangely uncomfortable in sweats or pajamas. I wear sunglasses often because of light sensitivity, but they’re the kind that look like (or are) regular prescription glasses. I don’t wear the stereotypical Oakley wraparound tacticool sunglasses.
And in the history of baseball hats, nobody has worn them like they’re supposed to be worn, except for people actually playing baseball and middle aged men trying to cover up a bald spot.
Eh, I don’t think you’re right. The SOP on public transportation seems to be don’t confront anyone, even if they’re being an asshole, unless they’re being a potentially dangerous asshole.
Yes, and they tend to be posted, and they tend to vary but not by much. Music without headphones is almost universally against the rules, so the vast majority of functioning adults who have ever been on public transit know not to do that. Same with singing, shouting, screaming, etc., although that it’s largely to the bus drivers discretion.
I remember this. It was mostly in Jewish communities, and even there I wouldn’t consider it a big push.
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Hard disagree. A Puerto Rican who was raised speaking Spanish or a deaf person who communicates via ASL is no less an American than I am.
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Is it “Be Polite to Racists” Month? Why do the racists get to be the only ones who speak up?
This makes no sense.
When people shout down racists, it forces the racists to re-think their position, or at least keep their bigotry to themselves. When racists get loud, they feed off each other an it usually ends in violence against vulnerable people.
Looks like we have to pull out Popper’s Paradox (again).
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Are you familiar with the area in question? Have you been there? Who is “they” in your statement? Are you trying to imply that even publicly progressive-minded people are secretly racist? Hmmmmm…
Perhaps in your area. I would say around here it was a big enough push that I still remember it all these years later despite shunting from my mind almost my entire time in HS and never learning Esperanto.
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That one sticks me a little too. Myself and the other Canadians I know generally refer to the geographical area as “The States”, but the people as “Americans”. The feeling you are describing, though, is how I feel when Americans describe Canadian cities with only the city and country name. Like, “Toronto, Canada” instead of “Toronto, Ontario”. Americans seem to assume all other countries are small, so it’s the same as saying “Paris, France”. Meanwhile, they would never call their own cities “Chicago, United States” or “Atlanta, America”.
This may be a unique set of tensions between Canadians and Americans, as I certainly don’t expect other people to know or care about the minutae of Canadian provinces, any more than I could name any “counties” in Thailand. 
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Is it, though? The United States has gotten by for over 240 years without an official language. Many other countries (including Canada) have multiple official languages. There are plenty of examples of successful societies that are not united by a common tongue. Hell, even the motto printed on our currency is in another language.
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I think that is rude anyway, and even in UK the fact people will speak a totally different language but they can speak English if they have to talk with someone that talks only in English. There are public radio and tv channels broacasted in other languages, nobody has problems with it.
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It’s been more than one month. Since 2015, it’s become increasingly worse in the public discourse to call a racist out on racist behaviour than to actually be a racist. I wonder what happened to encourage so many people to start expressing their “concern” about racists being publicly shamed for doing racist things. [rhetorical statement. We all know what happened]
I witnessed a similar incident first hand on a city bus a number of years back. Someone made a completely racist comment to another passenger, and there was no ambiguity or chin-stroking concern about freeze peach in response. The bigot was instead yelled at by the other passengers for being a racist, the driver stopped the bus and, when the racist wouldn’t leave as requested, the police were called and he was removed. I would have expressed deep concern about this ever-so-uncivil “mob reaction” or perhaps tried to meet the racist halfway by having a more nuanced discussion, but I was one of the people who’d stepped outside to comfort the actual victim, who was in tears.
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It can be more than just stepping out of one’s comfort zone:
And yet, we have to keep doing it, time and time again.
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I have lived there, or else I never would have mentioned it.
Yes I am. Anyone who lives in a white normative society harbors racist and white supremacist beliefs, end of story.
Even as an American that jangles me a little.
Americans also tend to severely underestimate the size of any state they haven’t spent much time in. So, it’s not just you, we do it to ourselves all the time.
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I firmly believe that everyone should travel cross country by train or car, at least once.
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it’s always a little jarring when I hear people (usually Brits) refer to the US as “America”. As in, “what is the capital of America?” Americans call themselves Americans and their country the US
.In my region of Canada anyway, we often refer the U.S. as "The U.S. or more commonly; “The States”.
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Yeah, I guess that’s true (though-- minor point-- I don’t think “common language” necessarily means the same thing as “official language”). If the central government in some countries, for instance, conducts its business and issues its proclamations in one language, such things are indeed readily translated to those citizens who don’t know that language.
Umm, yeah sure, but how many of us actually speak that language? We’re talking about the languages people use to communicate with each other, not by now obscure official declarations that mean about as much to most people as that eye-above-a-pyramid thing.
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I think the fact that our country has a non-English motto that is essentially a message about diversity (“from many, one”) is a pretty decent illustration of how sharing a common language isn’t a prerequisite for forming a society.
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There was a famous recent case in Wales where a nosy white English person objected to a non-white woman on a bus speaking ‘foreign’, and should speak English.
It turned out this woman was actually speaking Welsh, probably the original language of these islands (Angles and Saxons came later) and was roundly told to GTFO!
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I’m curious if you or someone else here knows of a magical place in the USA that is remarkably free of racism.
I’ve just come to view “Well what did you expect, it’s (state/region/city), that place is so racist” as a cheap cop-out. I’ve fallen into the same trap myself in the past, but I’m not sure what benefit that kind of regionalistic finger-pointing has when these events happen all over with regularity.
In defense of the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts, the fact that this woman is way outnumbered by folks loudly putting her in her place is about the best you can hope for in the good ole USA.
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I think there’s a bit of middle ground between “everyone’s a little bit racist” and “everyone, even in a deeply-progressive racially-integrated town, has white supremacist beliefs”.
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Indeed it is.
