Our anti-Americanism is over the top....
It's like a national sport - insulting the Americans - and a luxury we need to get rid of...
One day, Brian made a mistake at work, not a big mistake but a mistake. An onlooking colleague turned to another colleague and remarked that Brian was a "typical dumb-ass American." Another colleague asked him, "Is that the way you do it where you come from?"We love to hate Americans - despite the fact that we live under their military shield, and we are beneficiaries of their huge economic engine. The world needs more of the United States, not less.
This was one of many incidents that made Brian wonder what he had let himself in for by marrying a Canadian and immigrating to Canada. The most personally hurtful incident was his daughter's report that her high-school history teacher had denounced Americans. "She found it crushing," Brian says. "She felt out of place." He wanted to talk to the principal about it but she begged him not to, arguing that he would only make things worse.
It was pretty clear from the beginning that this country wasn't eager to welcome him. "My first night in Canada, I was asked to back my vehicle into the driveway so the neighbours did not see the American licence plate. I'm serious!"
He came here in 2006 and has lived in three small Ontario cities, all west of Toronto. He found them uniformly anti-American. He now takes it for granted that about half the people he meets will, if the opportunity arises, say something that indicates they don't like Americans.
He wrote to me after coming across a long-ago column of mine about anti-Americanism. "For three years," Brian wrote, "I have had countless and relentless encounters and bad jokes about my nationality, and notice it is especially significant in Jr. High and High school teachers, as my kids were shocked to discover." Michael Moore's poisonous documentaries about America appear to be favourites of some Ontario schoolteachers. In one town, a history teacher showed Brian's daughter's class Bowling for Columbine, commenting that it showed true insight into America. At another, in a media teacher's class, she found herself viewing both Bowling for Columbine and Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. The teacher elicited from students views such as "Every American loves violence" and "Americans are always starting wars to invade countries."
posted by GayandRight @ 10:54 AM
5 Comments:
I'll admit to spouting Anti-American bigotry, and I'm wrong to do it. When I catch myself, I try to recognize what I'm doing and stop myself, I'll agree it isn't fair to hold all Americans responsible for the actions of a few, or paint with such a broad brush. I offer my apologies in general.
We do benefit from their defense and economic might. They landed on the moon, that's pretty cool. America exports some very good entertainment.
It's also wrong to hide behind any excuse such as Americans hold, well, confused or misinformed views on Canadians too.
However, I can still disagree with many of their governments actions and policies. I'm not convinced the world need more America. Let them succeed or fail on their own merits; they've had enough bailouts to last a while.
It's bigotry, and when you hear it or see it, call it that.
I don't get such simplistic divisions over borderlines.
We're all human after all and things can get complicated enough as it is. Who has the mindspace to waste?
But on a lighter note:
"America exports some very good entertainment."
Someday, I too will have an xbox360...
TWO even... but alas, I am always 3 to 7 years behind everyone else regardless of where it comes from.
My "new" computer is well over three years old at least.
[Not a complaint.]
I'm always slow to upgrade on the hardware side on everything.
I get things on the "cheap and out". Less "prestigous" to some perhaps but more cost effective...
I'm just happy that whatever I get is the final release with all the bells and whisltes with all the kinks worked out.
By the time some american products do make it up here, at least they should work much better then their origenal counter-parts.
It's disturbing to know some Canadians buy into the America-is-the-root-of-all-evil nonsense, particularly, but not surprisingly, teachers. Way to lead by example.
At least America's "bigotry" toward Canada is usually in jest. I mean, how can anyone NOT love Canadians? :*
As for "American" entertainment being first rate, hey, at least a third of it is the product of transplanted Canadians. You guys have knack for funny. :D
@DoorHold: it's not that America is the root (route?) of all evil, but they aren't the perfect example either. I've lived in the U.S. for a couple of years and travel there regularly.
I've often found far too many people hold inaccurate beliefs about life outside America, and they don't apologize for that either. To disagree with you, I'm pretty sure they're not joking (though a few are).
BOTH sides need to temporarily 'fall back' to more politically correct positions, say, asking questions rather than making assumptions, until each side understands the other better.
After having fought through American red tape (health insurance, immigration, etc.) I've got a pretty thin skin for being called 'the 51st state.' It really, really ain't that funny no more.
Anf this is my point: the jokes would be funnier if they were true(er). For both sides.
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