To point out the anti-Americanism on Mumsnet?

[PitilessYank]

To My Fellow Mumsnetters,

This topic arose on my recent thread about Bernie Sanders, so I decided to start a thread centered around it.

I really enjoy Mumsnet; there is nothing else like it. However, even as a mellow person, and someone whose hackles rarely get raised, I find myself increasingly pissed off by the anti-American schtick around here.

Enough about our mammoth American refrigerators! (Yes, I own one.) It is not our fault that you have imported over-the-top baby showers or bachelorette parties ("hen-dos"). (I didn't have one, for the record, I think that they are dumb.)

Our educational system is very decent, thank you very much. (For one, unless you are talking about NYC, children here are guaranteed a spot in a local school in the town in which they reside. No muss, no fuss.

Also, did you know that the majority of US physicians, of whom I am one, currently support the implementation of a single-payer health care system that provides guaranteed coverage to all? We are working on it, European onlookers!!

The US is like a collection of 50 different small countries horribly lumped together, and change can be slow.

But we got it together on gay marriage! That was pretty impressive. And Bernie Sanders is very popular! That is a good sign. We make good tv shows?? (Yours are great as well, and much more artful, imho.)

And I think we are so nice to you-always gushing about your lovely accents, assuming that you are smarter than we are because of how you talk, even, appreciating your amazing architecture, art, lusting after your sexy princes, etc...

Well, that concludes my rant for now. Thank you for reading it. I feel better. Commence telling me IABU.

With Love,
Pitiless Yank.

[claraschu]

On Mumsnet, I have seen Americans blamed for the most bizarre and unrecognisable combination of things. I wish I kept a list- I can't remember the funny ones.

My kids are half and half, so they seem English to Americans and American to English people. Guess where they are more popular?

My eldest went to Uni in the US to reap the benefits of his British accent, (and to avoid the scorn heaped on him by you lot).

[MiniTheMinx]

There is a difference between America and Americans. There is a distinction also to be made of culture and individuals, and of course politics and the state.

I do not dislike Americans
I do dislike the American state
I do not agree with your political system
I dislike your culture, its films and TV shows
I dislike the way in which America is culturally imperialist
But the individual American's I have met both here and on their own turf I have found very nice.
Oh, and I thought the ice creams, hot chocolate and frozen bananas were great too...but you lot can't make tea :) so I came home.

[CrystalMcPistol]

The US is like a collection of 50 different small countries horribly lumped together

Yes. I'm sure that Alabama is as much a foreign country to people in New Hampshire as it is to us.

[fukkigucci]

I live in America. Grew up in England, married an American. And Americans are so so so nice. It continuously surprises me!
But, I laugh at them every time they think an antique is something 20 years old. And I despair of them for liking trump. And guns.

[Mrsfrumble]

I'm a Brit living in America. I live in a state that ranks near the bottom for education, mostly because schools here are so massively underfunded. While there are some things I prefer about the school system here (the "everyone goes to their local school" thing is ace, and I like that children don't have to start until 1st grade and there is no problem or stigma with holding your child back a year if you feel it necessary), but I can't get my head round the fact that education is such a low priority for politicians and voters in this state compared to, say, tax breaks for oil companies (we can't vote, despite paying taxes.)

The healthcare system is one of the reasons we're not staying here permanently too.

I do love it here, and I'm grateful to have had the experience of living in this huge, beautiful, mixed-up country. But concepts like the sanctity of the 2nd amendment and American exceptionalism are hard for a Brit to swallow.

[redstrawberry10]

Two random people once berated me (an american) for the Iraq war, apparently unaware of the UK's role in it.

[Mrsfrumble]

The US is like a collection of 50 different small countries horribly lumped together

Yes to this too. I live in very conservative, quite rural state. I'm sure my experiences would be very different if I lived in say, Boston or San Francisco.

[PitilessYank]

Mini- what you wrote interests me very much! I can't think of any country in the world about which I would say "I don't like its culture." It is such a sweeping statement. I don't like certain aspects of certain cultures, particularly when it comes to sexism and racism, but there are admirable aspects to every culture.

Also, what is American Culture? Is it the culture of Massachusetts? California? South Carolina? There is a tremendous heterogeneity among the US states, culturally.

[biggles50]

I think you're right Americans do get a bashing and it's not fair. I've never been to the states but some day I will. I love American films, literature, dr Sarno the back pain expert is American and without his theory on back pain I'd be in agony still. The only grandparent I knew was American and I loved her more than anything. So here's a big hug from me!

[Duckdeamon]

I have lived in the US and enjoyed warm hospitality, really fantastic higher education and lovely places to see and live. I felt there were much bigger cultural differences than I'd expected.

My main beefs with the US were: Biased news reporting.

guns and gun deaths and no action being taken. Terrible.

religion seemed to pervade the state. The presidential nominee candidates are always quoting scripture etc: not what I want in political leaders.

Rubbish roads, electrics, utilities and public services (unless you had $$$).

some people I met - more than in the UK IMO - had awful attitudes about any kind of welfare and people who needed it.

"democracy" where you need $$$ and to owe favours to backers get elected.

The "free market" with shedloads of state subsidies for industry.

[HelpfulChap]

I love the U-S of A!
My fave place to go on holiday (sorry vacation) and been there many many times.
I agree with how friendly they are in general and how easily they will tell you their life story.
I have actually been asked if I knew someone that lived in Birmingham (UK), I imagine because we are such a small nation.
I love how patriotic every one seems to be.

The American idea that our food is shit is fairly ridiculous though and as for we all have bad teeth, well I've seen Extreme makeover! All movie and pop stars have fluorescent teeth because they are well off, not quite the same for the poor over there.

Think I will do Boston/New England next.

[HelpfulChap]

I do hate the way they say 'do you golf' its 'do you play golf' FFS

[PitilessYank]

Biggles!! John Sarno is a genius. Interestingly, did you know that Howard Stern, a radio DJ and not a shining light in American culture (although I think he is great, funny, and kind of an equal-opportunity jerk), was the one who made him famous here? He went to him and his back pain was cured.

[MuttonDressedAsMutton]

YANBU but the putdowns you mention are usually uttered by uneducated thickoids who don't even own passports never mind expand their minds with travel!
I've visited many times and I love America. I like all people from wherever as long as they're not complete twats and then it doesn't matter where they're from so I'll never understand people who say they 'don't like Americans'. How fucking stupid is that? Stratospherically stupid, that's how stupid!
I don't know if other nationalities do this but we Brits seem very fond of writing off whole chunks of the world in this way - "I despise the French" being a very popular one here! It's too silly and marks the speaker out as spectacularly hard of thinking and the kind of twat best avoided!

[PitilessYank]

Chap-

Isn't "golf" a verb??

You will like Boston. I lived there for the first 30 years of my life,and my British friends here in the Midwest tell me that they think that NewEnglanders are very Brit-Like.

Since I moved to the Midwest I have become much more friendly and loud. So I have lost much of my Boston-ness, except for my love of sarcasm. That lives in my very bones.

[hollowlegs]

Manners-Oh, I will own up to that one. We are absolute bitches about your teeth. We looove to take cheap shots at your dentition.

that's A OK.
You take cheap shots at our teeth
We take cheap shots at your big asses

All is good.

[TheGreatSnafu]

If America is so big and lacks a unified culture then why do you take America bashing personally?

[PitilessYank]

Giraffes-I also find NYC residents a bit unfriendly. However, people who live in NYC claim that it is a very friendly city!

It is a magically weird and fascinating city, and I do think the populace there is more friendly than it was 30 years ago, so maybe that is what they mean.

[MiniTheMinx]

Oh and I liked the Arizona dessert. We pulled into a "gas" station which was just a shack with a corrugated roof, and out toddled this wizened old woman of about 90. She was shorter than the pump and she stood there and in this drawl says "you should have been here this time last year...we had a storm, took the fucking roof right off my shack" It was quite unexpected.

Culture, well I guess for me its the whole liberal ideology and the way in which American film, TV, books have been exported to the rest of the world, doing the work of capitalist free market ideology, taking up residence on high streets, McDs in every city, even serving Halal, and the way in which American culture and lifestyle is sold as the pinnacle of civilisation. (notice I used a "S" and not a "Z" ! even my spell check is Americanised.

Politics is corrupted by money, the state acts in the interests of corporations and Wall street, Christian fundamentalism runs through the whole, and the sate and the banks are kept in business by starting wars that can never be won, all the while creating poverty within its own boarders and out.

However, as I have said, I have only ever met individuals that I have liked. I found them welcoming, friendly and helpful.

[Vintagebeads]

I lived in the US for five years in three different states two on the east coast one down south.
I have to say I loved it and had my visa not expired I would have stayed.
It one of the few places I felt very welcome,on the whole they encourage success, its a good thing to do well.I liked the friendly, polite way most people had.
I did not like the lack of news, nowhere outside the US exist, and as so a lot of people had very weird ideas about life outside of America, I got asked if I knew what lasagne was,did I know any Royals and how did I manage to have an Irish boyfriend being English.
But once you have healthcare and a job it's a great and beautiful country and I loved it.
I would move back if I could.

[MitzyLeFrouf]

I think New Yorkers are friendly in a very brusque kind of way.

I was accosted and bellowed at more than once when I was spotted looking gormlessly at a map.

'YOU! ARE YOU LOST? I KNOW WHERE THAT IS FOLLOW ME'.

[PitilessYank]

Snafu-Because I have really enjoyed Mumsnet, and the misunderstanding really bugs me.

[SquinkiesRule]

Another family of Americans here, the whole lot of us are Dual, some born in UK some born in US, all have two passports and are enjoying life in the UK. We still all love the US though.
There are as many things about the UK I dislike as there are about US. It really is 6 of one half dozen of the other.
I get my hackles up with the assumption on MN that anything they dislike must be an American import.
I had a go at some woman one year who when she realized my family were moving to UK started slating the NHS and how we'd all die from lack of care and Medicine. So both countries have equal opportunity idiots about.

[gleam]

Criminal Minds is the best show of its genre, ever. So thanks for that.

[PitilessYank]

Squinkies-I spend a surprising amount of energy defending the NHS here. I am very jealous of it, and it is greatly misunderstood. Fortunately, I have a cousin and an aunt who live in England, so I can cite specifics when it comes to the great, sensible care they get.

The US will eventually (I think within 10 years if Sanders wins) have single-payer, universal health care coverage. What remains to be seen is if we will have a single-provider like the NHS or multiple systems like in Canada.