9 ms·

What me and my family talked about today is that, as immigrants, we are so sad how much the "native born" people of the US hate their own country. They seem to

What me and my family talked about today is that, as immigrants, we are so sad how much the "native born" people of the US hate their own country. They seem to never waste an opportunity to remind others of their disdain and it is more and more visible these days e.g. in big news media or on Twitter. Makes me sad and I hope this can change.

hootbootscoot 6y ago
Do they hate their country or the wicked humans and laws ruling it? Do they hate their country or love it deeply and want it changed for the better? Does criticism equal hatred in your mind?
bradhoffman 6y ago
Me too.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
Indeed. Colin Kaepernick, on Twitter: > "Black ppl have been dehumanized, brutalized, criminalized + terrorized by America for centuries, & are expected to join your commemoration of “independence”, while you enslaved our ancestors. We reject your celebration of white supremacy & look forward to liberation for all. " Point of clarification: by "our ancestors" he's referring exclusively to his African-descended ancestors, not his European-descended ones.
- acdha 6y ago
  You’re upset that he focused on the ones who were oppressed rather than the ones who were oppressing? Many Black people have white ancestors but ask how much of that was really consensual and how those children were treated.
  - throwvid19 6y ago
    Are you suggesting that Colin Kaepernick's mother was raped?
    - projectileboy 6y ago
      No, but previous ancestors. Rape of the enslaved was very common. The difference in skin tone between Africans and the majority of African-Americans is not because of something in the water.
  - dorado3 6y ago
    He's so oppressed he has like 100x more money than the average white person, while contributing nothing to society. Maybe some whites living in trailer parks should pay him reparations for all his suffering, while he collects checks from Nike.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > Many Black people have white ancestors but ask how much of that was really consensual Doesn't this imply a problem with the whole "sins of the father" thing? Otherwise all of those people would have to be condemned as the offspring of a rapist.
    - acdha 6y ago
      Those are separate concepts: we should not condemn children for their parent’s crimes but that doesn’t mean that we should forget that those crimes happened. In this case it’s especially important because those children were treated very differently from their siblings: a slave owner’s fully white children had full status in society and lived in relative luxury but those borne by slaves inherited their mother’s status. Apologists try to claim that some relationships were consensual but it’s hard to reconcile that with the treatment of any resulting children.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > we should not condemn children for their parent’s crimes but that doesn’t mean that we should forget that those crimes happened. But then what do you propose to do about it? All of those people are dead. We can't bring them back to life and punish them. > In this case it’s especially important because those children were treated very differently from their siblings It was no doubt a very important distinction to the children. I wouldn't want to have to argue it was a very important distinction to modern day descendants seven generations later when that ancestor represents less than 1% of their ancestors from that many generations ago. And the usual argument is to want to assign guilt if you benefited from a bad thing one of your ancestors did. But having existence is a pretty huge benefit, which makes that argument taste quite sour.
- tathougies 6y ago
  But the United States didn't enslave his ancestors. England did, and the US inherited it, but made several provisions to end the practice quickly (Congress passed a law as soon as it was able to end the slave trade, and then fought a war that cost many American lives to end it for good). For all of American history, most people did not own slaves. And before someone says 'well they benefited from it'... well we benefit from cheap, abusive labor practices in China and other Asian countries so get off your high horse. Benefiting does not imply acceptance.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    This is a weird bit of historical revisionism. The US slave trade was abolished in 1807, which was not the earliest such a law could have been passed. 1776 was. England ended the slave trade the same year (and slavery had clearly been on the way out since 1772, when the first ruling about slavery being illegal in the British isles was made). This ruling may have contributed to the interest in declaring independence from Britain among wealthy US slaveholders, like for example George Washington. England then abolished slavery in the entire British Colonies in 1833, the US took another 30 years to free southern slaves via the Emancipation Proclamation, and another 2 years beyond that to enact the 13th amendment. > For all of American history, most people did not own slaves. This is irrelevant. The powerful and influential did. The people who had control over the government for the most part did. Think I'm lying? More than 3/4 of the signers of the declaration of independence were slaveholders[0]. [0]: https://twitter.com/arlenparsa/status/1168192825848213510 https://twitter.com/arlenparsa/status/1168192825848213510
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > England did, and the US inherited it I think this is bollocks. In 1775 the slave owners were British subjects. By 1800 they were US citizens, but they were the same people. They didn't change, their citizenship changed. The better argument is, they're all dead now. All of the slave owners and all of the slaves are dead. Their children are dead. Their children's children are dead. It has been seven generations. More than that, the large majority of the current day US population are descended from immigrants who came to the US after the abolition of slavery, and even the large majority of those present during the civil war didn't own slaves. Are we to blame a family who immigrated from Poland during WWII? The dead are responsible for what the dead have done. We are responsible for what we do.
- dang 6y ago
  Please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
rayiner 6y ago
My family is Bangladeshi immigrants and we have been talking about this lately too. My parents just moved into a new house, and yesterday my dad installed a big American flag. My parents are Democrats so they agree ideologically with CNN, etc., but even they’re getting sick of the over-the-top weeping and rending of clothes.
- defen 6y ago
  There is basically no penalty (social, legal, financial, professional, etc) for going "too far" in condemning America, especially if you are a middle-to-upper class white person in an urban area. In fact there may be rewards. So just thinking about the dynamics of that, why wouldn't people go too far?
- tathougies 6y ago
  Vote Red. Don't mistake not being mentioned with being ignored. Took my parents (Indian) a while to make the switch, but they've never looked back. > We believe in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion, and creed. Every child, of every color — born and unborn — is made in the holy image of God. (Applause.) > We want free and open debate, not speech codes and cancel culture. > We embrace tolerance, not prejudice. > ... > We are the country of Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Frederick Douglass. We are the land of Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody. (Applause.) We are the nation that gave rise to the Wright Brothers, the Tuskegee Airmen — (applause) — Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Jesse Owens, George Patton — General George Patton — the great Louie Armstrong, Alan Shepard, Elvis Presley, and Mohammad Ali. (Applause.) And only America could have produced them all. (Applause.) No other place. -- Trump's address at Mt Rushmore EDIT: you don't even need to vote for Trump, just look at your local elections.
  - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    Ye gods, no. Never. While the progressives are indeed successfully driving Indians, Asians and other immigrants into the arms of Republicans thanks to their embrace of identity politics and cancel culture, the answer is for the silent majority of mainstream liberals to openly repudiate progressivism, as Obama did, and drive them away from the Democratic Party. Make it clear that the liberal left truly welcomes people of all races and beliefs, not just the ones the progressives favor, and that the left seeks to heal the country, not to divide it as Trump and the progressives do.
hintymad 6y ago
Yeah, and so many people of color came to the US with a suite case and less than $1000 dollars, and then became a successful person in a few years. I certainly did. My wife certainly did. My team, my gardener, and my contractor certainly did. Some people who are from the same school as I went to have even become CEOs of big companies, and some have become famous professors or head of prestigious universities. If anything, I got help from people of all colors, and particularly from a great system that generations of people in the US have built. Is the US perfect? Of course not! But everything in the US is worth hating? You gotta be out of your mind. Is the history of the US perfect? Of course not! That's why it's history! Human learn. Human improve. Human societies evolve from centuries of violence, prejudice, or pure cruelty. If we cancel them, we won't have a history. In the meantime, the poorest 20% of the US population is probably better than 80% of the population in the world, and this is not great? The protestors can afford protesting full time for weeks, and this is not great? We have NBA who have more than 70% of black athletes. We idolize them. They make millions of a year. And this is not great? A long list of Hollywood stars are black and we love them and LinkedIn is full of Will Smith's inspirational interview, and this is not great? We have a black president in a white-majority country, and this is not great? We have black mayors, council members, senators, congressman and congress woman, and this is not great? If we look at the US history, we have Charles Drew, we have Rebecca Lee Crumpler, we have Daniel Hale Williams, we have Marie M. Daly, we have Alice Augusta Ball, we have Katherine Johnson, we ave Dorothy Vaughaun, we have Christine Darden. The list can go on. Are they not great? And if we follow the logic of cancel culture, we should cancel Rome, cancel Greece, cancel renaissance, cancel all religions, cancel Europe, cancel China, cancel India, cancel Africa. They all had their share of slavery, for centuries. They all had their share of atrocity, again for centuries. Then what's left? What's the point? And should we cancel our childhood? Should we cancel ourselves? Most of us, after all, did something stupid or horrible when we were young. Should our parents cancel us? Some people are just sick.
- tathougies 6y ago
  Yup. My mom and dad came to this country with nothing. My mom had $30 and a husband, who, she didn't even know, was 'employed' by her brother-in-law but not paid wages. They managed to escape virtual slavery at age 30, have two kids, and achieve the American dream. Mom even went to school again while putting both her kids in private school (didn't live in a great school district). America's been pretty great to us. Both my brother and I married outside our race. My brother and I are all American. My daughter and my nieces and nephews are literally the most american story you can make. Their existence is only made possible by a place such as America. The melting pot still exists, and it's amazing. Cancel culture seeks to destroy that which makes America great. Is it perfect, no... of course not. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. For all their failures, the various figure in American history often also have views and attitudes worth remembering, and that's what they're idolized for. And good for them... their ideals are better than the alternative. Without these imperfect individuals holding on to their -- sometimes even hypocritical -- ideals, stories like my parent's, my wife's parents, and my sister-in-law's parents would never happen. Happy Independence Day!
pdonis 6y ago
> we are so sad how much the "native born" people of the US hate their own country Not all of them do. I was born in the US and I love my country.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  It’s interesting to see how Europeans are so nationalistic. The Swiss are very proud. They have excellent branding so to speak and you’ll know when something is Swiss made because the marketing around it would be overwhelming. I dated an Italian and there was intense sense of patriotism in everything they did. On the other hand, Swedes and Germans aren’t as much. Nationalism in some ways bothers me because it creates a lens through which you see the world in a form of distortion. Btw, I am an American.
vore 6y ago
As an immigrant, I don't feel the same sadness you do. There's still many injustices in the US, and framing it as "hating their own country" is extremely unfair: people are frustrated about a lot of things, people are emotional about a lot of things, and I don't think it's fair for you to discard it as simply "disdain". After all, America was founded on rebellion against the status quo (what day is it today again?), and I hope that doesn't change.
- zipwitch 6y ago
  As an American from birth, and speaking for myself, it's not hating my country. It's frustration and sometimes anger at our failure to do better. I believe that doing better than we are is within our grasp, but we, as a nation, so often seem to turn away from positive change in favor of a comfortable and easy (for many Americans) status quo that is ultimately inadequate and often blindly hypocritical.
  - vore 6y ago
    Even from just examining the present, it's hard to find much to like about how the US is handling a pandemic.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      We have fewer Covid deaths per capita than four of the five biggest countries in the EU. Do you think people in France or Spain are “ashamed” of their country’s handling of the outbreak?
      - MagnumOpus 6y ago
        That is incorrect (Belgium is not one of the biggest EU countries nor is Sweden). But even if it were true, wouldn't you want to aspire to something greater than being 7th going on 6th in the world out of 200 countries in terms of deaths per capita? This thread seems to have too many examples of effusivelt lauding the US for being marginally better than whichever repulsive place that is worst in the world at a particular metric - rather than trying to be the shining "city upon a hill" and taking up best practices.
refurb 6y ago
As an immigrant the US I feel the exact same way. American don't know how good they have it compared to a lot of the world.
watersb 6y ago
We don't hate our country! We want it to live up to its promise for everyone. Truth and justice for all is hard. If we didn't believe in it, we wouldn't try.
WalterBright 6y ago
My mother was an immigrant. While she always loved her country of origin, she grew to love America more.
sorwin 6y ago
This has also been a constant topic amongst my family, extended family and many friends (mostly european). My entire family (including me) and extended family immigrated here within the last 10-30 years, yet we all love living here, and have the same sentiment around people who have been born here. They were given such a great opportunity (that we all had to work for), yet most of them throw it away and have little love for the country and what it offers. I even have family and friends on H1B/student visas who despite all thesese issues, are supporting a lot of these right-wing issues after these protests, which was a bit surprising (considering the ban on the visas)
beaner 6y ago
I feel like I might get downvoted for this, but a large part of it comes from a sense of guilt about clearly being the most successful and powerful country in the world. When nearly everyone else on earth constantly gives you shit (while also trying to enter...) many people here have started accepting those foreign perspectives and seeing themselves as spoiled and privileged. I can remember this being true from when I was a child. It has been happening for a long time. Complacent adults have never stood up and tried to set things straight. Many Americans don't want to seem naive about how good they have it, so they overcompensate by disliking the country instead. It doesn't help that being successful has made life incredibly easy for a significant fraction of people, who find fulfillment in social justice rather than family and work, because they aren't as necessary anymore. Social justice as a way of living tends to correlate with self hatred, which extends to the country. There are other factors of course, but these ones are large.
- danieldk 6y ago
  about clearly being the most successful and powerful country in the world And this to the rest of the world is typical America arrogance. I am sorry to be blunt, but I have to call it out. I won't debate that the US is the most powerful country in the world. But 'most successful' is very debatable. I have been in the US often, and found that most Americans are far less well off than in other Western democracies. Most Americans have very few vacation days, poor healthcare, and are in a spot where losing their job means a large probability of falling into poverty. Plus your political system (democrat or republican) completely fails to serve most citizens. To add to the offense, the nationalism instilled in many Americans makes it so that they believe that these are not failings of the system. After all, everyone can live the American dream, and if you do not make it, it is your own responsibility rather than that of the system that puts most people at a large disadvantage. I would never even consider moving from Nothern/Western Europe to the US. Canada, maybe. Australia, New Zealand, possibly. But never the US.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nec4b 6y ago
rconti 6y ago
I believe you've constructed a straw man argument about those who "hate" their own country. It's easy to feel self-righteous when your opposition "hates". I guarantee you someone out there thinks that I hate America, just because they extrapolate a whole set of beliefs from one thing I've said. There are people out there (probably on your Nextdoor, because they're certainly on mine!), angry about BLM protests. Angry about the chaos. Angry about statues. Angry about violence. Angry about looting. People saying "if these protestors get in my way, I'mma run them over in my truck." People saying "if you want help defending your business, just say the word and me and my bros will come back you up". People saying "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." People like our president. Advocating extrajudicial execution of American citizens. Do they hate America? Why or why not?
charlescearl 6y ago
If you fail to understand how so many Indigenous and Black people of this country view it with such contempt, I would recommend a few reads. But first I would ask you to consider that whatever greatness it can claim lies not in it’s continued founding myths, but in the many unheralded acts of sacrifice and resistance that so many of it’s marginalized citizens made and continue to make down to this very minute. James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”, or his “No Name in the Street” layout both how the country was brought to the reckoning of the Civil Rights movement and then completely capitulated to white supremacy. Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the 4th of July” [1] still rings true to so many of us. Read David Truer’s “ The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present” on the meticulousness explicated horror of how this country has and continues to destroy and devalue Indigenous life. The people protesting Friday in the Black Hills or in the front lines of the Black Lives Matter actions are calling upon us all to view it as it is, and dare to imagine what it could be. I am sad that we don’t embrace the movement to bring about real democracy. [1] https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/nations-story-what-slave-fourth-july https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/nations-story-what-slave-fou...
- wincy 6y ago
  Who isn’t embracing it? Every person I know on LinkedIn has made some sort of statement, including a few high level managers I went to school with and could call out because they say they’re an “ally” and lived in a “diverse” neighborhood when really they lived in the rich subdivision and went to private school as the neighborhood became “lower class”. But I don’t really know what putting an old classmate on blast on LinkedIn is going to accomplish.
  - burgerboy 6y ago
    BLM is a terrorist organization
- noworriesnate 6y ago
  Black lives do matter, but BLM the organization gets a lot of flak because they're unfortunately hijacking the concern of black lives with a Marxist political agenda. Here's one of the founders discussing this in an interview about BLM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCghDx5qN4s&t=423s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCghDx5qN4s&t=423s It's sad to me that we can't have a conversation about police brutality without having Marxists inject themselves into the conversation and harness it for a political agenda that is so violent and manipulative. I care very much about the sanctity of all lives, but I can't discuss black lives without having to explain that I don't support Marxists. That is messed up.
sizzle 6y ago
Twitter and social media platforms shoulder some of the blame here for this phenomenon you are noticing due to their engagement algorithms amplifying outrage in your newsfeeds.

hootbootscoot 6y ago

Do they hate their country or the wicked humans and laws ruling it? Do they hate their country or love it deeply and want it changed for the better? Does criticism equal hatred in your mind?

bradhoffman 6y ago

Me too.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago

Indeed. Colin Kaepernick, on Twitter: > "Black ppl have been dehumanized, brutalized, criminalized + terrorized by America for centuries, & are expected to join your commemoration of “independence”, while you enslaved our ancestors. We reject your celebration of white supremacy & look forward to liberation for all. " Point of clarification: by "our ancestors" he's referring exclusively to his African-descended ancestors, not his European-descended ones.

acdha 6y ago
You’re upset that he focused on the ones who were oppressed rather than the ones who were oppressing? Many Black people have white ancestors but ask how much of that was really consensual and how those children were treated.
- throwvid19 6y ago
  Are you suggesting that Colin Kaepernick's mother was raped?
  - projectileboy 6y ago
    No, but previous ancestors. Rape of the enslaved was very common. The difference in skin tone between Africans and the majority of African-Americans is not because of something in the water.
- dorado3 6y ago
  He's so oppressed he has like 100x more money than the average white person, while contributing nothing to society. Maybe some whites living in trailer parks should pay him reparations for all his suffering, while he collects checks from Nike.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > Many Black people have white ancestors but ask how much of that was really consensual Doesn't this imply a problem with the whole "sins of the father" thing? Otherwise all of those people would have to be condemned as the offspring of a rapist.
  - acdha 6y ago
    Those are separate concepts: we should not condemn children for their parent’s crimes but that doesn’t mean that we should forget that those crimes happened. In this case it’s especially important because those children were treated very differently from their siblings: a slave owner’s fully white children had full status in society and lived in relative luxury but those borne by slaves inherited their mother’s status. Apologists try to claim that some relationships were consensual but it’s hard to reconcile that with the treatment of any resulting children.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > we should not condemn children for their parent’s crimes but that doesn’t mean that we should forget that those crimes happened. But then what do you propose to do about it? All of those people are dead. We can't bring them back to life and punish them. > In this case it’s especially important because those children were treated very differently from their siblings It was no doubt a very important distinction to the children. I wouldn't want to have to argue it was a very important distinction to modern day descendants seven generations later when that ancestor represents less than 1% of their ancestors from that many generations ago. And the usual argument is to want to assign guilt if you benefited from a bad thing one of your ancestors did. But having existence is a pretty huge benefit, which makes that argument taste quite sour.
tathougies 6y ago
But the United States didn't enslave his ancestors. England did, and the US inherited it, but made several provisions to end the practice quickly (Congress passed a law as soon as it was able to end the slave trade, and then fought a war that cost many American lives to end it for good). For all of American history, most people did not own slaves. And before someone says 'well they benefited from it'... well we benefit from cheap, abusive labor practices in China and other Asian countries so get off your high horse. Benefiting does not imply acceptance.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  This is a weird bit of historical revisionism. The US slave trade was abolished in 1807, which was not the earliest such a law could have been passed. 1776 was. England ended the slave trade the same year (and slavery had clearly been on the way out since 1772, when the first ruling about slavery being illegal in the British isles was made). This ruling may have contributed to the interest in declaring independence from Britain among wealthy US slaveholders, like for example George Washington. England then abolished slavery in the entire British Colonies in 1833, the US took another 30 years to free southern slaves via the Emancipation Proclamation, and another 2 years beyond that to enact the 13th amendment. > For all of American history, most people did not own slaves. This is irrelevant. The powerful and influential did. The people who had control over the government for the most part did. Think I'm lying? More than 3/4 of the signers of the declaration of independence were slaveholders[0]. [0]: https://twitter.com/arlenparsa/status/1168192825848213510 https://twitter.com/arlenparsa/status/1168192825848213510
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > England did, and the US inherited it I think this is bollocks. In 1775 the slave owners were British subjects. By 1800 they were US citizens, but they were the same people. They didn't change, their citizenship changed. The better argument is, they're all dead now. All of the slave owners and all of the slaves are dead. Their children are dead. Their children's children are dead. It has been seven generations. More than that, the large majority of the current day US population are descended from immigrants who came to the US after the abolition of slavery, and even the large majority of those present during the civil war didn't own slaves. Are we to blame a family who immigrated from Poland during WWII? The dead are responsible for what the dead have done. We are responsible for what we do.
dang 6y ago
Please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

rayiner 6y ago

My family is Bangladeshi immigrants and we have been talking about this lately too. My parents just moved into a new house, and yesterday my dad installed a big American flag. My parents are Democrats so they agree ideologically with CNN, etc., but even they’re getting sick of the over-the-top weeping and rending of clothes.

defen 6y ago
There is basically no penalty (social, legal, financial, professional, etc) for going "too far" in condemning America, especially if you are a middle-to-upper class white person in an urban area. In fact there may be rewards. So just thinking about the dynamics of that, why wouldn't people go too far?
tathougies 6y ago
Vote Red. Don't mistake not being mentioned with being ignored. Took my parents (Indian) a while to make the switch, but they've never looked back. > We believe in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion, and creed. Every child, of every color — born and unborn — is made in the holy image of God. (Applause.) > We want free and open debate, not speech codes and cancel culture. > We embrace tolerance, not prejudice. > ... > We are the country of Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Frederick Douglass. We are the land of Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody. (Applause.) We are the nation that gave rise to the Wright Brothers, the Tuskegee Airmen — (applause) — Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Jesse Owens, George Patton — General George Patton — the great Louie Armstrong, Alan Shepard, Elvis Presley, and Mohammad Ali. (Applause.) And only America could have produced them all. (Applause.) No other place. -- Trump's address at Mt Rushmore EDIT: you don't even need to vote for Trump, just look at your local elections.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  Ye gods, no. Never. While the progressives are indeed successfully driving Indians, Asians and other immigrants into the arms of Republicans thanks to their embrace of identity politics and cancel culture, the answer is for the silent majority of mainstream liberals to openly repudiate progressivism, as Obama did, and drive them away from the Democratic Party. Make it clear that the liberal left truly welcomes people of all races and beliefs, not just the ones the progressives favor, and that the left seeks to heal the country, not to divide it as Trump and the progressives do.

hintymad 6y ago

Yeah, and so many people of color came to the US with a suite case and less than $1000 dollars, and then became a successful person in a few years. I certainly did. My wife certainly did. My team, my gardener, and my contractor certainly did. Some people who are from the same school as I went to have even become CEOs of big companies, and some have become famous professors or head of prestigious universities. If anything, I got help from people of all colors, and particularly from a great system that generations of people in the US have built. Is the US perfect? Of course not! But everything in the US is worth hating? You gotta be out of your mind. Is the history of the US perfect? Of course not! That's why it's history! Human learn. Human improve. Human societies evolve from centuries of violence, prejudice, or pure cruelty. If we cancel them, we won't have a history. In the meantime, the poorest 20% of the US population is probably better than 80% of the population in the world, and this is not great? The protestors can afford protesting full time for weeks, and this is not great? We have NBA who have more than 70% of black athletes. We idolize them. They make millions of a year. And this is not great? A long list of Hollywood stars are black and we love them and LinkedIn is full of Will Smith's inspirational interview, and this is not great? We have a black president in a white-majority country, and this is not great? We have black mayors, council members, senators, congressman and congress woman, and this is not great? If we look at the US history, we have Charles Drew, we have Rebecca Lee Crumpler, we have Daniel Hale Williams, we have Marie M. Daly, we have Alice Augusta Ball, we have Katherine Johnson, we ave Dorothy Vaughaun, we have Christine Darden. The list can go on. Are they not great? And if we follow the logic of cancel culture, we should cancel Rome, cancel Greece, cancel renaissance, cancel all religions, cancel Europe, cancel China, cancel India, cancel Africa. They all had their share of slavery, for centuries. They all had their share of atrocity, again for centuries. Then what's left? What's the point? And should we cancel our childhood? Should we cancel ourselves? Most of us, after all, did something stupid or horrible when we were young. Should our parents cancel us? Some people are just sick.

tathougies 6y ago
Yup. My mom and dad came to this country with nothing. My mom had $30 and a husband, who, she didn't even know, was 'employed' by her brother-in-law but not paid wages. They managed to escape virtual slavery at age 30, have two kids, and achieve the American dream. Mom even went to school again while putting both her kids in private school (didn't live in a great school district). America's been pretty great to us. Both my brother and I married outside our race. My brother and I are all American. My daughter and my nieces and nephews are literally the most american story you can make. Their existence is only made possible by a place such as America. The melting pot still exists, and it's amazing. Cancel culture seeks to destroy that which makes America great. Is it perfect, no... of course not. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. For all their failures, the various figure in American history often also have views and attitudes worth remembering, and that's what they're idolized for. And good for them... their ideals are better than the alternative. Without these imperfect individuals holding on to their -- sometimes even hypocritical -- ideals, stories like my parent's, my wife's parents, and my sister-in-law's parents would never happen. Happy Independence Day!

pdonis 6y ago

> we are so sad how much the "native born" people of the US hate their own country Not all of them do. I was born in the US and I love my country.

systemvoltage 6y ago
It’s interesting to see how Europeans are so nationalistic. The Swiss are very proud. They have excellent branding so to speak and you’ll know when something is Swiss made because the marketing around it would be overwhelming. I dated an Italian and there was intense sense of patriotism in everything they did. On the other hand, Swedes and Germans aren’t as much. Nationalism in some ways bothers me because it creates a lens through which you see the world in a form of distortion. Btw, I am an American.

vore 6y ago

As an immigrant, I don't feel the same sadness you do. There's still many injustices in the US, and framing it as "hating their own country" is extremely unfair: people are frustrated about a lot of things, people are emotional about a lot of things, and I don't think it's fair for you to discard it as simply "disdain". After all, America was founded on rebellion against the status quo (what day is it today again?), and I hope that doesn't change.

zipwitch 6y ago
As an American from birth, and speaking for myself, it's not hating my country. It's frustration and sometimes anger at our failure to do better. I believe that doing better than we are is within our grasp, but we, as a nation, so often seem to turn away from positive change in favor of a comfortable and easy (for many Americans) status quo that is ultimately inadequate and often blindly hypocritical.
- vore 6y ago
  Even from just examining the present, it's hard to find much to like about how the US is handling a pandemic.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    We have fewer Covid deaths per capita than four of the five biggest countries in the EU. Do you think people in France or Spain are “ashamed” of their country’s handling of the outbreak?
    - MagnumOpus 6y ago
      That is incorrect (Belgium is not one of the biggest EU countries nor is Sweden). But even if it were true, wouldn't you want to aspire to something greater than being 7th going on 6th in the world out of 200 countries in terms of deaths per capita? This thread seems to have too many examples of effusivelt lauding the US for being marginally better than whichever repulsive place that is worst in the world at a particular metric - rather than trying to be the shining "city upon a hill" and taking up best practices.

refurb 6y ago

As an immigrant the US I feel the exact same way. American don't know how good they have it compared to a lot of the world.

watersb 6y ago

We don't hate our country! We want it to live up to its promise for everyone. Truth and justice for all is hard. If we didn't believe in it, we wouldn't try.

WalterBright 6y ago

My mother was an immigrant. While she always loved her country of origin, she grew to love America more.

sorwin 6y ago

This has also been a constant topic amongst my family, extended family and many friends (mostly european). My entire family (including me) and extended family immigrated here within the last 10-30 years, yet we all love living here, and have the same sentiment around people who have been born here. They were given such a great opportunity (that we all had to work for), yet most of them throw it away and have little love for the country and what it offers. I even have family and friends on H1B/student visas who despite all thesese issues, are supporting a lot of these right-wing issues after these protests, which was a bit surprising (considering the ban on the visas)

beaner 6y ago

I feel like I might get downvoted for this, but a large part of it comes from a sense of guilt about clearly being the most successful and powerful country in the world. When nearly everyone else on earth constantly gives you shit (while also trying to enter...) many people here have started accepting those foreign perspectives and seeing themselves as spoiled and privileged. I can remember this being true from when I was a child. It has been happening for a long time. Complacent adults have never stood up and tried to set things straight. Many Americans don't want to seem naive about how good they have it, so they overcompensate by disliking the country instead. It doesn't help that being successful has made life incredibly easy for a significant fraction of people, who find fulfillment in social justice rather than family and work, because they aren't as necessary anymore. Social justice as a way of living tends to correlate with self hatred, which extends to the country. There are other factors of course, but these ones are large.

danieldk 6y ago
about clearly being the most successful and powerful country in the world And this to the rest of the world is typical America arrogance. I am sorry to be blunt, but I have to call it out. I won't debate that the US is the most powerful country in the world. But 'most successful' is very debatable. I have been in the US often, and found that most Americans are far less well off than in other Western democracies. Most Americans have very few vacation days, poor healthcare, and are in a spot where losing their job means a large probability of falling into poverty. Plus your political system (democrat or republican) completely fails to serve most citizens. To add to the offense, the nationalism instilled in many Americans makes it so that they believe that these are not failings of the system. After all, everyone can live the American dream, and if you do not make it, it is your own responsibility rather than that of the system that puts most people at a large disadvantage. I would never even consider moving from Nothern/Western Europe to the US. Canada, maybe. Australia, New Zealand, possibly. But never the US.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nec4b 6y ago

rconti 6y ago

I believe you've constructed a straw man argument about those who "hate" their own country. It's easy to feel self-righteous when your opposition "hates". I guarantee you someone out there thinks that I hate America, just because they extrapolate a whole set of beliefs from one thing I've said. There are people out there (probably on your Nextdoor, because they're certainly on mine!), angry about BLM protests. Angry about the chaos. Angry about statues. Angry about violence. Angry about looting. People saying "if these protestors get in my way, I'mma run them over in my truck." People saying "if you want help defending your business, just say the word and me and my bros will come back you up". People saying "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." People like our president. Advocating extrajudicial execution of American citizens. Do they hate America? Why or why not?

charlescearl 6y ago

If you fail to understand how so many Indigenous and Black people of this country view it with such contempt, I would recommend a few reads. But first I would ask you to consider that whatever greatness it can claim lies not in it’s continued founding myths, but in the many unheralded acts of sacrifice and resistance that so many of it’s marginalized citizens made and continue to make down to this very minute. James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”, or his “No Name in the Street” layout both how the country was brought to the reckoning of the Civil Rights movement and then completely capitulated to white supremacy. Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the 4th of July” [1] still rings true to so many of us. Read David Truer’s “ The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present” on the meticulousness explicated horror of how this country has and continues to destroy and devalue Indigenous life. The people protesting Friday in the Black Hills or in the front lines of the Black Lives Matter actions are calling upon us all to view it as it is, and dare to imagine what it could be. I am sad that we don’t embrace the movement to bring about real democracy. [1] https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/nations-story-what-slave-fourth-july https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/nations-story-what-slave-fou...

wincy 6y ago
Who isn’t embracing it? Every person I know on LinkedIn has made some sort of statement, including a few high level managers I went to school with and could call out because they say they’re an “ally” and lived in a “diverse” neighborhood when really they lived in the rich subdivision and went to private school as the neighborhood became “lower class”. But I don’t really know what putting an old classmate on blast on LinkedIn is going to accomplish.
- burgerboy 6y ago
  BLM is a terrorist organization
noworriesnate 6y ago
Black lives do matter, but BLM the organization gets a lot of flak because they're unfortunately hijacking the concern of black lives with a Marxist political agenda. Here's one of the founders discussing this in an interview about BLM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCghDx5qN4s&t=423s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCghDx5qN4s&t=423s It's sad to me that we can't have a conversation about police brutality without having Marxists inject themselves into the conversation and harness it for a political agenda that is so violent and manipulative. I care very much about the sanctity of all lives, but I can't discuss black lives without having to explain that I don't support Marxists. That is messed up.

sizzle 6y ago

Twitter and social media platforms shoulder some of the blame here for this phenomenon you are noticing due to their engagement algorithms amplifying outrage in your newsfeeds.