It has nothing to do with abortion, but that doesn’t mean it’s not interesting. Robert Fulford writes about a particular kind of Canadian bigotry, one I encounter quite often myself. (I’m not a U.S. citizen; I’m just extremely pro-America.)
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?”
No, it’s not that big a deal. But if the co-workers had said this to someone from, say, Saudi Arabia or China, how would we react?
by 
That bugs me too – it’s just kind of pathetic really (like most bigotry). Someone at the park one time said something about “those Americans” and I looked at her and said, “My kids are American.” The back pedaling was rather amusing. That was back in the dark days of the “Bush regime” too, which people liked to say their bit on, to which it was always fun to respond, “I quite like George Bush.” (I live in Toronto, so there’s never a shortage of opportunity to annoy a liberal).
It is really not surprising. Kids get it from Day 1 at school and we all know the poisonous atmosphere at Canadian universities (although American universities are filled with anti-Americanism, too, interestingly enough). It is completely pathetic, and I can say that as a person who used to be very bigoted in this way myself (but I am much better now :-). The only way past this or any kind of bigotry is to get to know individuals. It’s easy to have contempt for an abstract collective … much harder when you get to know actual people.
It is very popular notion in America (I live there) to embrace a sense of self-loathing about being an American. We are pressured to parrot the rhetoric that we are not as cultured or intelligent as citizens of other countries. We are greedy and selfish (check out the amount of US private donations sent to foreign causes sometime, by the way). Oh, and we are inherently racist. In many circles, if you take pride in or defend American ideals (liberty, freedom, whatever), you are disregarded as some sort of blindly patriotic hillbilly.
I think one reason why anti-American sentiment is accepted is because many other countries’ racial heritage is seen as synonymous to their nationality. This isn’t the case in America. Also, there is an enormous double standard when it comes to cultural criticism – therefore, some cultures become a sort of scapegoat while others are protected (in the social and political sense) from honest scrutiny.
I would really prefer to be able to judge all cultures based on their merits and faults. I can’t keep up with which cultures the cool kids criticize.
Canadian anti-Americanism is just so pathetic.
It is unfortunate that Canadians are generally anti-American. We are very mistrustful of Americans and I believe this comes from the Trudeau era.
I personally think America has a lot going for it, that Canada should look at, freedom of speech being number one in my books.
And despite what people say (recalling Phil Ochs’ song Cops of the World) the US used to be the only country in the world that any other country could rely on coming to their defense. Sadly, that image is changing.
We like Americans, we live close enough to the border that we make several trips there every year. We NEVER had a bad experience, people are polite and helpful.
Most Canadian (and probably worldwide) anti-Americanism can be found at the left end of the political spectrum. I have a lot more problems with them than with Americans!