AIBU to ask you some questions about the USA?

[BreakfastInAmerica]

I've been reading lots of US fiction over lockdown, I've never been there.

What's the big deal with joining a fraternity house at College? What is the benefit of it? Why the Greek frat house names?

Is public access television still a thing?

Why do they call savoury muffins English Muffins when I'm more likely to see a blueberry or chocolate muffin when I'm out and about?

How do Americans eat things like thick pancakes with cream for breakfast, even the people who are slim?

What are grits?

Why are Automatic cars so prolific in the US, rather than manual/stick shift?

I'm sure I've got lots more questions and please pitch in with your own questions and answers.

AIBU to ask for your answers and questions about the small differences between the US and the UK?

I’ve watched American tv programmes where the families have a large number of children and they either leave the kids with a babysitter and rush out to do some food shopping or else take all the kids with them which is just chaos. I appreciate this might just happen for viewing but I’m intrigued.

To me the sensible thing to do would be to order online and get it delivered but is this something that supermarkets offer in the states?

Until recently, supermarkets only offered delivery in limited areas. The rise of third party services similar to Ocado and the pandemic changed that.

Prior to that the only options were get someone to look after the DC or, yes, bring them with.

@Linnet

Online ordering for curbside pickup and delivery in my neck of the woods, Texas, has been around only a little while, around two or three years. It has really come into its own due to Covid.

We don't even have curtains in our house. We do have blinds, and our dining room has drapes (fake curtains). I'm pretty far north so do have early mornings, but I don't mind. Normally I have to be at work before 8 am, so it's a good idea to get up early.

To me the sensible thing to do would be to order online and get it delivered but is this something that supermarkets offer in the states?

None of the supermarkets in my area offer delivery. One does click and collect - that only started a few years ago. I think you can pay Instacart to shop and deliver from a couple of places but it sounds like the people doing the shopping get a fairly shitty deal.

@shadyzadie

I'm curious about where people typically do their food shop, like the equivalent of going to Tesco's or Sainsburys here.

In the (limited) places I've visited in the US, I've seen Walmarts in the suburbs (which didn't seem that great for fresh food), smallish mini-mart grocery stores and then fancy Whole Foods or corner shop/bodegas in the cities. All great in their own way, but nowhere that had the same wide range of reasonably priced food/goods that you'd get in the major U.K. supermarkets.

You're experience is very limited. Here i Massachusetts our supermarkets have an excellent variety. Somewhat more expensive than the UK but far higher quality.

Online ordering is not the norm. Certainly not as widely available as in the UK. Had become more popular thanks to COVID as a PP said. But I think there's always a hefty delivery charge which I'm not sure whether that's the case in the UK. There's Instacart which is a third party service where someone else shops for you and delivers it. I've never done online food shopping here.

American here - love this chat!

@Linnet I have small kids and always waited until someone else was around to watch them before I went shopping. In the last three years, grocery delivery has become much more common (Amazon buying Whole Foods has a lot to do with that). Everyone I know was exclusively ordering grocery delivery prior to the pandemic and now it’s even more common.

I"ve tried instacart and peapod a few times (peapod when we were in the very small children stage) but much prefer shopping for myself. Reading the posts on MN about UK online shopping I always wondered if the substitution thing wasn't as big a deal in the UK.

But yes in the pandemic it is much more usual to do online delivery or online curbside pick up. I still prefer shopping myself though.

I live in Florida. There are no curtains in the house; we have blinds for sun control but don't need them for privacy because our house backs up to what real estate folks call "conservation" area, meaning woods. No one can see into our bedrooms. So we seldom need to close blinds at night.

Supermarkets - or stores - there's a range. They tend to be more regional, but there's anything from a local corner store to Whole Foods & Costco. Of course, it depends where you live. Delivery is rare because everywhere is so spread out once you're away from cities. It would cost a fortune to do it.
I live in the midwest and people can be 10 miles from a store, so they may well drive into town once a week, load up the truck, then take it home to fill the freezer etc. Before everyone had huge refrigerators and freezers, they relied on food being canned (tins) or pickled or just full of preservatives.

I will never get the thing they have with having a full dinner with milk, how disgusting

and that:

What's wrong with drinking milk with a meal?

@Candacewasalwaysright

What's wrong with drinking milk with a meal?

really? nothing better?

What do Americans (generally) think of the British?

Total cliche but entirely true. We love your accents. Dunno why--we just do. I don't know that I've ever heard a discussion about the British people in general, though.

I don’t want to come across as a trump fan but to say Biden won’t put kids in cages is wrong. He was part of the Obama administration in 2014 when these photo were taken Of children in border detention .

The photo of the two children asleep in a cage was actually tweeted by Jon Favreau a speech writer for Obama who didn’t check his facts and a credited the detention to Trump. He deleted his tweet after it was pointed out that the photo was from 2014.
I am sure both sides will have come up with arguments for why they put children in cages but you can’t get around the fact that both trump and Obama have done so.

@HelloToMyKitty

He was telling that demographic that their kids are just as smart as white kids and they deserve those same opportunitities

You don’t think this is offensive? Why would anyone actually think black Americans are not as smart based solely on skin colour? To tell a room full of black Americans this? Awful.

But I do think he just mixed up race and class, he is very gaffe prone.

Once again read. 30 billion dollars for small businesses owned by POC. Are you saying that African-American are not POC?

Why do you again lump black Americans with POC? They are not a singular community and have diverse needs. Helping POC doesn’t necessarily mean helping black people.

Illegal immigration disproportionately affects black Americans, btw, in terms of depressing wages and employment opportunities.

Because that is POC's reality. Due to their races they are marginalized. It's the POC who unfortunately live in generational poverty at a higher rate than white people Their schools are not as good as white suburbia due to the poverty levels. They don't have the tools they need like text books or technology and they are very much being left behind. Biden making those comments was him telling that demographic that they are deserving of more and could do more with federal intervention. Off you are poor,you live in a poor school system meaning you get a poor education. He is fighting for them. To give them the same opportunities as the white kids. In America race can very much be class.

No they aren't the same community but face many of the same challenges. Illegal immigration affects everyone

What to Americans think of the British? We think you solve murders and get drunk, when you aren't Morris dancing or deep frying yourself up some Mars Bars for your wholesome tea. Is that right? But mostly, solving murders.

But he's not going to put migrant children in camps

Why not? Obama did. 🤷

I love this thread.

I'm British, living in the UK but have close family in California /Nevada so have been over many times.

@Durgasarrow that's hilarious!
I must admit in all my 3 years of living there I never got mistaken for miss Marple, but I admit that was decades before the onset of Britbox.
Mainly I constantly got the 'where you from?' thing, with the follow ups of 'my family came from Lincolnshire (or insert other english county)' even though I'm from somewhere else entirely. I found it endearing though, and an attempt to forge a link.

Have really enjoyed this thread. One thing that often bothers me about the US is my impression that stereotypically, government and citizens dont take environmental concerns seriously and so there isn't much recycling or attempts to reduce or reuse. Is this true or is there more of an active concern than it seems?

I said camps, not cages.

Under Obama unaccompanied migrant children were kept in detention centers for several days before being transferred to social services. I think the cages are awful but this does not compare to Trump's policy of family separations and keeping children in horrific conditions for months, in what are basically concentration camps. Children don't get medical care, some have died. Many have been sexually abused. Some have been adopted by Americans and their families will never see them again.

Every country has detention centers and most are pretty terrible (the UK has also been criticised for its centers) but what Trump has done goes far beyond this.

Biden has said that he will stop separating families and end indefinite detention. This is a huge issue in the Democratic base so I think he will.

@RaininSummer true of the places I've lived. But big corps and local companies take pride in doing community litter picks and maintaining verges etc.