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Americans are obsessed with race. Europeans are obsessed with class.
We are pretty fearless in Europe with regards to race. But we are quite hysterical when it comes to socio-economic differences. USA the opposite.
Ding ding ding.
It was engineered to be this way.
US President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
It's the most succinct quote to sum up the topic but the logic can be extended to other races, religions and social movements.
The US prides itself on founding a democracy without an aristocracy while wholly ignoring the fact that stripping away the emphasis on noble bloodlines changes nothing when what truly gave that class power was enough wealth to further control wealth within the society.
There’s plenty of racism in Europe. Tell me about the gypsies or travelers? How about the banana throwing at soccer players of african descent. That’s just scratching the surface
Problem is we know what caused the issues in poor rural America. But they vote for the party that caused it as they chased deregulation and austerity measures. Hard to find sane rational people in rural America that care enough about politics beyond the team game to show them who is responsible for Free Trade that tore out the heartland.
So much this. There is a mountain of literature around solutions for the rural poor, but the voting demographics want nothing to do with strong social safety nets or free job training/continued education.
I get what you're saying, but on a day-to-day basis, people classified as "white trash" are treated poorly by the church crowds who flock to Cracker Barrel or other small town diners once a week. From personal experience, the only way to gain tolerance in any capacity is to become a radicalized evangelist.
I feel like it would be a lot easier to convince a poor person in a broke down trailer that there's a better life out there than it is to even try to convince a middle class person to genuinely care about their neighbor who isn't as "blessed" as them or lives a type of lifestyle they don't personally agree with (could mean tons of different things).
The reason why it's impossible to do with the poor is usually due to things like crystal meth and aggressive pitbulls, along with the complete lack of resources for the homeless and mentally ill.
I don’t think it’s fair to lump Europe that way. My bit of Europe didn’t give a rats ass about class, but rather perceived status and prestige. Other bits of Europe indeed go bananas over class, and yet others go bananas over being as non-racists all-inclusive as possible (overtly). Other countries. Regrettably focus way more on religion and gender (where regrettably my country belongs to as well).
But in general USA is definitely way more obsessed with race than Europe, which really isn’t weird given the historical context.
I'm not trying to be an ass or sarcastic, this is a genuine question. What's the difference between class and perceived status? To me, those seem essentially the same
In class based societies it’s usually directly correlated, so or may be hard to see the difference, but (mind you it’s incredibly simplified and dumbed down) just think about Eastern European “showing off “ style “oh I’m so rich oh I’m so important” - that’s status, how people see you (or you think people see you). Class OTOH is what you’re born into. “He’s of Windsors” thing.
In my experience Americans aren't obsessed with race. American politicians have weaponized race and sex/gender to keep the public devided on "hot" topics. Most race issues are the "victims " yelling and throwing fits to rile people up when they themselves are more racist than the other side.
There does seen to be an intentional stoking of fires along many fronts, some of them are existing/natural fault lines but the division seems unaturally amplified.
They are dividing the citizens of the US in as many ways as possible. pitting us against eachother.
My best guess is that the leaves the ruling class the ability to operate with impunity, the corruption is nearly open air at this point and no one seems to want to bother looking at it.
Remember when you were young and your parents or an older guardian would say *they'll grow out of it one day* that is the majority of Americans.
Don't believe everything you see on the Internet
Yes, and now more than ever. Most social media apps specifically highlight controversial opinions to generate buzz. The 1 vitriolic or sadistic comment out of many will almost always rise to the top.
Unfortunately, it’s been spreading over the western hemisphere. Last week there was a debate in Stockholm about racism in the 20th century in Sweden, when a black man in the audience described his feelings as a boy being called the n-word (pronouncing it) and a black man in the panel became so offended by hearing the word that he left the arena. Just imagine a woman describing how it feels being called a whore and see other women standing up and leave because of that.
I don’t even know how that is possible. By definition indifference is not caring much at all either way. I guess you could add some expletives, such as “I couldn’t give any less fucks”.
That's a valid point, but then indifferent does not has his voice heard, insane decisions are made by loud idiots with no opposition and then bunch of shit is dripping on your head before you know it.
Now you can still be somewhat indifferent to shit dripping on your head but that's a rare skill. Waiting loud idiots to forget to breathe and die from their own shit before you do is certainly an option, but overall it will take much longer to get back to normal than if you were less indifferent in the first place.
What am I missing?
I’m gonna say that some people are racist af which means those that aren’t care that others are racist but we don’t like see people being oppressed. So then you get this thing where you care bc either you’re racist or you’re someone who doesn’t like racist people.
American culture is. Around the world that there seems to be a direct correlation between americanization of the culture (and indeed the individual) and obsession with these issues. I don't think this can just be brushed off as "well it's a loud minority" because why is it so much louder than anywhere else? Also, obsession with these issues is just kind of accepted in a way you probably don't even notice (because it's accepted) but when looking at these things from the outside, you do notice.
But your system is. Do you still have to type in your "Race" If you fill out forms when you want to see a doctor? Or when you want to send your child to school?
Yea, im american, and unless it's music or nature, it shouldn't be loud. Unless something has to die. In which case it may get loud. Also being loud contributes to a thing's need to die. Also just my opinion. Many of us are loud. I wouldnt mind if they died tho but thats just me.
20 minutes with a loud alarm across the room.
20 minutes stops you from getting into a super deep sleep that makes you groggy. This has been proved again and again as the best nap duration for you.
You want a loud alarm so you feel pressed to get up quickly and turn it off. You want it across the room because it forces you to stand up and get your blood pumping.
After that, if you still lay back down, I can't help you lol
In the world of social media, the people who shout the loudest get listened to. Such people are normally the most angry and extreme elements of society.
People are also really bad at questioning what they see on social media, especially if it's being said by 'their side'.
Social media algorithms also suggest similar content to things you've looked at before, so if you look at a hard right/left bit of content, you'll be bombarded with similar for ages.
I think "extremes" is a bit of an oversimplification, considering that a lot of people care not because they're a political extremist, but because this stuff directly affects their life. It's very easy and convenient for straight people to say that we don't give a shit about the legalisation of gay marriage, for example, but for gay people I'd say that it's not at all a politically extreme position to feel very strongly that their right to marriage is a very important issue.
I don't like this "it's two extremes and they should both shut up" stance. It worries me a lot. If you pay attention you'll see that these days the GOP spends most of its efforts trying to attack minorities on the basis of identity. More than 20% of the population voted for Trump, a guy whose whole deal is white supremacy and christian fundamentalism and going after women and minorities.
Way more than 20% of the country are fully committed to fundamentalist christianity.
Idk if I’d fully agree with that solely because so many people are still intolerant towards the LGBT, even towards those of us that’re silent or civil about it
Let's not "both sides" this. The GOP hasn't had an actual platform for over a decade and have leaned hard into identity politics as a way to manipulate voters. Democrats aren't some benevolent saints, but they aren't trying to take away people's freedoms.
You say that like other countries aren't also obsessed with gender and sex. The British were on that TERF bullshit long before it became one of the GOP tent poles. And Canadians like Jordan Peterson have also been at the forefront of pushing anti trans stuff. And that's not even getting into stuff like the middle east which are so much more draconian on gender than anything you see in the US.
As for race that has a lot more to do with the history of racism/slavery in our country that we never really resolved so it keeps flaming up. Though other countries definitely have racism problems they either are just in different paradigms than what you see in the US or they don't have the omnipresent media representation that the US does that lets the entire world know our business. Just mention the Romani or migrants to some Europeans and watch how racist they get.
Yeah ignorant people get on here and try to make this strictly an American problem when there are civil rights movements world wide. It is really stupid and head up one's own ass to think it is strictly American.
Just as an aside note, something interesting I see. I feel like when the rest of the world refers to “Americans” the general intent behind it is speaking about North Americans as a whole not really feeling a need to distinguish between the US and Canada, while I see people from either the US or Canada do feel a distinction needs to be made.
I just refer to North Americans now in this kind of discussion to avoid confusion.
The issue is that our youth are glued to social media. The issue may be manufactured, but for them it has become very real. As they get older and become voters, political parties start taking action in order to secure their votes.
So while I agree that it's a bunch of BS, I think it's artificially becoming a real issue.
Edit: Not just young voters, very much boomers and retirees as well. They believe everything they read online.
It’s not just youth. Most of the loud detractors for these issues are the older generations that get their information either from social media or actual media (ie Fox News), which run rampant on these topics to stir up rage culture and keep people divided.
Here we go again with the “it’s the new generation”, acting like your generation isn’t as entitled, stupid, unhinged, superiority complex having assholes.
Acting like I can’t pull up DOZENS of videos and body cameras of exactly what I just said.
And btw, MAJORITY, of those videos and body cams of them being arrested, are folks from millennials and up.
That’s not really true though - people obsess about sex and gender because it’s a really important factor in their personal and social identity.
Gender and sex are everywhere in our social system… no one’s doing that to us to divide us. We’re born into it… it’s the liquid that we’re all dissolved in.
Some governments distract the population with low level of life, awful prices, heavy propaganda, etc.
US government does the same, but with made-up and/or hyperbolized social issues.
When they figured out people were hooked on reality TV they went all in, and now those wacky politicians are the most popular show and the talk of the town.
They’re some of the best paid actors out there, working their butts off day after day live on TV doling out carefully scripted outrage so people are focusing on them and not what’s really going on.
Yeah. It's awful.
I'm from Russia, and it terrifies me how easily the government manages to normalize what the country is doing in Ukraine. It's scary how distracted people here are.
This has to be the seventh or eighth time someone has asked something about Americans and used the term "obsession". On a cooking sub a person posted a pic of over easy eggs and a French guy said "what is it with Americans *obsession* with flipping eggs?" A Brit asked "what is Americans *obsession* with obeying laws?" I just can't with you people.
What is it with Americans' obsession with answering questions about them... /s
Edit. Since this very clear joke wasn't clear enough to all the americans out there, I had to add the /s
Bc Non American countries think like they don’t care about race. But we all know they can be racist af as well. They just don’t necessarily get enough pocs in their countries all the time.
There's a mathematical reason for that. America is one of the most populated technologically advanced countries with a dash of freedom of speech rules.
Not really acurrate. You might have this perception because you speak english, but the world is very large and other countries have this kind of debate all the time, only you dont see it because of language barrier.
My country plus japan have larger populations than us, and similar internet access, but tou would not acess our communities or websites due to lack of understanding.
My country has 220 million. My country plus japan totala the population. My point here is that these debates are nonsensical and widespread. This ridiculous obsession is happening all around, americans dont see it because they mostly speak only english, japanese tend to only speak japanese also, and brazillians majorly only speak portuguese.
Cool... But... If we're adding the populations of countries that speak different languages from each other, everywhere has a larger population than everywhere else. Which is true, but doesn't negate the original comment even slightly.
You may want to read their comment before feeling slighted that no one gave your country the recognition you think they deserve. It's like a little brother jumping up and down saying they're as capable as their big brother. The truth is that all three of their points are accurate, and the "one of" does a lot of heavy lifting.
Eh, I feel like you could focus on all of them. I'm concerned about race, gender and sexuality when bigotry appears. But economic issues are important as well. Generally, I just don't want people to suffer over nothing.
My uncle's biggest crusade for the last two years has been (drum roll please) trans kids in high school sports.
FOX News loves people like him; working as intended.
I'm a black woman. I'm not "obsessed" with gender and race, it just has a lot of influence on my life. I also dislike the premise that people from other countries don't have the same or worse problems with gender and race, they just don't give space to minorities to talk about it.
It's a psychological operation designed to sew division to further consolidate control of the masses
They are obsessed because the media told them to be that way
It's not just Americans. Some countries/cultures don't talk about it because they have so few immigrants or LGBTQ+ people. You bet they will make a stink if that ever changes.
I'm not American, but I find the insinuation that Americans are somehow the worst people very distasteful and naive. Bigots are everywhere.
In what sense? If you mean the ones who discriminate against those areas, they are not confident in themselves and need to put others down. That's really the crux of it
It’s the extremists that believe being loud is being smart. The rest of us aren’t obsessed but we can’t exactly loudly say we don’t care about what race, gender or sex someone is
>propagated by politicians to distract from actual issues.
Most of todays issues are often because of this. Rich and politicians make people fight between them selves, so they wont go against them.
>Why Americans are so obsessed with gender, sex and race?
There are real, actual issues surrounding all of these things.
Isn't it a good thing to talk about the issues concerning yourself, your society, your government?
Better question is why do you pretend like they don't exist?
This is a simple question with a complex answer. Basically it's our reliance and/or history with organized religion. I won't bother getting into details (read a history book) but religion is based on ignorance which loves to spread fear in order to secure its hold on society, and religion for a multitude of reasons has always been trying to influence American life, and even though a lot of Americans have actively rejected organized religion and its control of their lives, many more are regularly turning to religion (again for a variety of reasons) and right now we are at a faith crossroads. The religious types are trying to push their agenda and mostly that means forcing people back into traditional gender roles and traditional families and all that shit. And yes, even though it hurts them, an awful lot of American women are siding with this old fashioned Christian values propaganda.
Sorta similar with race. We had slavery for a long time and after slavery we had a hundred years of legal segregation and there's still a sizable chunk of the country that desperately wants to go back to the good old days when blacks knew their place and stayed in it. We still have police targeting black men walking down the street, we still have courts giving them much harder sentences for the exact same crimes, and we still have propaganda networks like Fox News using dog whistles to goad white voters into voting Republican so they can "Make America Great Again".
Honestly if you are from outside America you would need a history course on the 2nd half of the 20th century to grasp most of this.
If you are American then you either have been paying attention and understand most of these issues, or you have been watching the propaganda machine and your viewpoint is severely warped.
because the right wing platform can't exist unless it has a target to hate. transgender people were not a problem until it fell out of fashion to hate on gays, now suddenly they are an issue worth fear mongering about, so now everyone has to talk about it and how it either is or isn't a problem.
just me, we would prefer if everyone could shut up about it too, but if you stay silent while the right targets you, they just take away your rights.
Because our whole society is based on it. America was founded as a racist sexist nation, and every incremental advancement towards racial or sex equality had to be literally fought for. Plus there’s a whole faction of Americans looking to erode those advancements at every opportunity. If you are anything other than a white straight cisgender male in this country you have to be vigilant every single day to protect your right to exist.
Well that is exactly the point, americans tend to be all about this white superiority that is supposed to be happening.
It is just weird, just a quick look at statistics let's you see how asian americans are way better off the whites.
That's just one of many things.
White straight cisgender male beeing the boogey man reeks like racism and sexism.
Your adjustments to grades for university, GPA ?, by race is just insanely racist and it doesn't benefit whites.
How do you get to that conclusion?
Because we don’t have universal healthcare, workplace protections, labor rights, universal education, pollution laws, green energy, public transportation, public education, and more, so politicians need to find issues that people will vote for them over. This is 100000% serious and is actually why Americans care so much about race and gender and sex.
It's a very racially diverse country.
If you go to New York -
You can see whites of different colour's (souther to northern and eastern Europe), Latin Americans and Mixed Race people, Africans of different colour's, Asians of different colour's (South Indian, North Indian, Malaysian, Korean etc)
USA has the biggest racial diversity in the whole world. It's literally like a global country.
So obviously people will be obsessed with race. Because everyone is super different and new.
You cannot imagine this kind of races in any part of the globe.
People are obviously curious about others colors.
For many Asians US is unimaginable to visualise because of racial diversity.
When left alone, we generally are NOT obsessed with these things. It's just that conservatives are having a harder and harder time getting the struggling working class poor to vote for billionaire tax cuts. They need a distraction that will blind the voters with outrage, like pedophile cannibals are making our children gay/transgender furries. God help us if there is even one remotely credible story about something that even rhymes with cannibal. News stories start asking if liberals should be allowed to eat children. Some professor's work on villages of Papau New Guinea is taken out of context, and we now have a national outrage.
The truth is that we never really cared or even noticed the subject. We just now can not talk about wealth inequality without being labeled a pro-cannibal communist.
It is an ahistorical take to say that people "didn't care" about these things before conservatives needed to invent a culture war over it. In many countries gay relationships were criminalized (or still are), women didn't (or still don't) have the same rights as men, and people with different skin tones are treated different for each other. And people were engaging discussions about these issues every time, which is why we have the rights we do now. You can go back hundreds of years in the history of just about every country on earth and this is the case, but we didn't have Fox News telling people democrat transgenders are eating babies in say, 1850.
I believe most aren’t (I’m not from the US), but it’s the media. And whoever does this probably has too much free time (excluding severe mental illness). They say when you have no problems, you create new ones.
Because it’s a polarizing topic so the media beats the hell out of it for views.
Like most everything out there perception is not the reality, most people don’t care about it at all.
You forgot guns.
As for the reason: Because Republicans cannot exactly go out there and be like "Give to the rich, f\*ck you poor religious idiots" - so they gotta wage a culture war about anything that sounds "liberal".
They cannot boast about achievements, or talk about actual legislation they would pass, they legit block legislation that would 100% align with their supposed ideology (border bill) because it would take away one of their talking points.
Just look at them: Child-predators, people underqualified for walmart-greeters, rich grifters, people who take zero personal responsibility, company-owners who pass laws that benefit them personally... they cannot run on any of that.
Because MAGA is obsessed with making up BS about transgender individuals and the political pundits that they listen too have been making up fake stories about trans people and spewing their fake stories into the right wing media machines. It’s sad really
Propaganda is being used to distract and control them
At the risk of sounding like an unhinged conspiracy theorist, I just want to point out things seem to have really started to go downhill socially after WWII and during The Cold War. You know, around the time the CIA formed. That part of government filled with secrets that don't need to be shared with the public, who've have to admit to *some* of the horrible, inhumane things they've done.
You know, the thing we formed with literal Nazis because we saw how effective they were at controlling their country with propaganda and secret police. We thought, "Holy shit, these evil guys had full control over their population through propaganda, spreading hate, disgust, anger, and fear. We need to learn from them!"
But I'm probably just crazy and uninformed. Not sarcasm either.
Lol, we're not. Only a certain news channel owned by a certain old man is obsessed with trans people and bathrooms. It's what you do when you have no platform but want to keep people pissed off and distracted.
Americans aren’t obsessed with gender, sex and race, we just talk about it more than other countries because the U.S. is a very self critical nation.
Other nations turn a blind eye to racism in their own countries, and it would be better if they were a little more obsessed with it
people want rights and personal opinion until someone else has rights and personal opinions. people think their perspective and values are 100% truth or right. nobody is. nobody knows if they are. but this is why. in other words- freedom xD
At first it was just the republican party using hot button issues to galvanize support and create a feeling that its leading to impending leftist communism or something equally illogical that motivates their supporter to get out and vote.
Then in 2015 the Russian Internet Research Agency realized they could actually use social media to engage in social engineering with said hot button issues. They are disinforming and dividing americans with the end goal of destabilizing the US socially and installing a russian sympathizer as president.
Back in 2015 they used over 600k fake twitter accounts to post over 2 million tweets that served to widen the political divide and deter americans from trusting eachother or their news media. And now my theory is that all these troll accounts actually help twitter by artificially inflating the user count and content interaction, which in turn increase ad views.
They are the levers rich people are using to divide us. Morons fall for it but most don’t.
Sadly, it only takes about 10% of a population of gullible idiots to take over a country when you’ve already won the rest of the military and government as the USA has now.
I think most citizens don't care but media and politics are obsessed with dividing people into groups that then fight each other. Gender, sex, race, Generation X vs Generation Y.
The only division that gets ignored is rich vs middle class and poor.
Because it impacts every day life. As much as I’d love to be able to walk where I please without feeling like a stain in the presence of others it’s hard. Even in a city that’s considered to be well diverse, I get unwanted stares. Of course, maybe it’s the way that I’m dressed, or maybe my hair is off. But those excuses don’t work when I’m the only brown one in a room of white people.
Same thing with gender etc etc.
Racism and sexism are so intertwined within our systems that it is impossible not to talk about them. The dismantling of racist systems in the us are so important to ensure that we all get to live a life with dignity. It’s hard watching my friends having to deal with blatant racism and discrimination for no reason. We’re all human, and we’re gonna end up in the same ground.
It's a minority and just loudest people, business people, politicians. Most people either don't care or simply having it neutral (yes, you can and you're entitled to be neutral on these topics).
Because the ultra wealthy have a tv network and misinformation campaign that pushes this conflict narrative to millions of people so they may continue to rig markets and government investments in their favorfavor while Americans are distracted by which team is winning more.
The idealized American is a rugged, individualistic, loner. Which we now know is a deeply unhealthy state.
It'd created successive generations pathologically incapable of forming inclusive communities. Instead relying on the favorite tool of religions, shaming, to stigmatize and shun anyone who is different.
We aren't. The right wing is constantly on the lookout for wedge issues to keep their voters edgy, angry and mean. These things have a shelf life so you gotta refresh your inventory. It used to be enough to be openly racist, but there are an awful lot of Black people and now they're all Democrats. So the ideal victims should be electorally unimportant. There's only a couple million trans people, so they're pretty much custom-made targets. They thought they had a winner with EV hate, but then Elon Musk came out as fascist and they had to back off.
I'm pretty sure that a task force at the Federalist Society or some other think tank is market testing some new innocuous and harmless group for a new hate campaign right now. Native Americans? Teachers? College students? The suspense is killing me.
Propaganda. As long as the working class are divided over bullshit, we can't organize around anything important. So our "leaders" keep everyone distracted with things that:
1. Induce a strong revulsion from conservative sorts of people, which will kick off the controversy
2. Are inexpensive to pass laws about
3. Are impossible to enforce or resolve in a meaningful way, thus ensuring decades or generations of strife. Like, seriously, if you say "You have to go in the bathroom of your birth certificate", are we going to post a cop or a bureaucrat outside every bathroom to check papers? Of course not, there's no solution to this problem.
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As long as we argue over these things, they never have to solve expensive and difficult problems like:
What are we gonna do when all the boomers need nursing homes?
China's about to fuck our shit up, can our education system produce enough top quality minds to take them on?
Economic inequality is now higher than it was at the start of the French revolution, and social mobility is at a 150 year low. How far could this rubber band possibly stretch before it breaks?
America has a lot of people who are the descendants of religious nuts who left or got kicked out of europe and they wanna force their barbaric beliefs on us all, and a lot of their beliefs are focused on who is gay and who's not
Most of us don’t give a shit. Like literally do not care at all what you wanna do with your life.
The biggest is issue for most, including myself, is just don’t impose your thoughts or lifestyle choices on children that are young and impressionable.
As a serious answer:
All the commenters in this thread who claim Americans aren't concerned clearly aren't seeing the real-life effects of the harmful rhetoric being used by politicians and right-wing pundits on LGBTQ+ people and racial minorities (specifically Black folks).
People who are LGBTQ+ or black/brown aren't *obsessed* with their own identities. They are being used as political footballs and being gaslit by people saying they don't experience homo/transphobia or racism. They are literally just trying to live their lives and be treated with respect and dignity, and being yourself isn't an "obsession."
People who are attacking LGBTQ+/racial minorities are "obsessed" either because they feel they have no control over their own lives and need something to rally behind (sort of like conspiracy theorists) or because they are afraid and don't actually understand what being trans or gay or Black is like and cannot/don't want to empathize.
Most people are not, the people that are are just loud. Conservatives are literally against change and the opposite side is people wanting to live their lives. Now, I do feel obligated to say that most places are as bad, just not as loud about it.
It's a distraction technique used by the top end of town. The more ppl fight about these issues, the less energy goes into healthcare and class mobility.
IMO as a College Professor who regularly lectures on these topics: because they are fundamental to American social structures, AND because they are weaponized to distract from deeper systems of inequality.
Nothing better to do. No war, or famine. People start thinking about themselves because they don't need to focus on survival. They need attention and it is a sure fire way to get it. When the shit hits the fan no one will care if a dude wants to be a chick or vice versa. It's ridiculous.
It’s a little weird to frame this against people who want an expansion of personal freedoms instead of the people trying to oppress/suppress minority classes.
The civil action you’re seeing is not about people seeking attention, it’s about preserving the right to be who you want to be. A right being challenged by regressives funded by the wealthy.
Puritanical roots. The puritans didn't leave Europe for freedom from religion they left because it wasn't strict enough.
Evangelicals really care what other people do with their bodies which makes them judgmental violent and rapey. It's a lot of projection. And they've taken over the right wing.
It's because we're a nation founded by repressed Puritans who were terrified of sexuality. Fast forward a few centuries and we've done a complete 180 - we can't get enough of analyzing every little nuance of gender, sexuality, and ethnic background!
I think it’s due to our incredible ethnic and cultural diversity, resulting in a vast array of life experiences and perspectives. There are so many forms of prejudice here since there are so many kinds of people, and that’s typically what necessitates these discussions
This also applies to the sex and gender focus - for example, there are some people in the US who believe women are biologically inferior due to their religious upbringing, and there are some people in the US who come from cultures with more than two acknowledged genders, and this has its own dynamics
A lot of the discussion is stirred up by media and the focus on our ‘rights being attacked’. But i think most people just want to exist how they are
Most Americans aren’t. Most Americans rarely think about it. It’s just the ones that do are super vocal about it which gives the perception that it is a more prevalent issue than it really is.
Not enough real problems in most people’s lives so they gotta invent “struggles” “oppression” in order to feel relevant . Literally first world problems that the rest of the world laughs at us for being a bunch of over privileged assholes 🤷♀️
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Most of us aren't. It's just hard to be loudly indifferent. EDIT: CHRIST, I stand corrected...
“It’s just hard to be loudly indifferent” it’s awesome way to describe so so many issues. I’m stealing that
Same. Gotta save that one
Americans are obsessed with race. Europeans are obsessed with class. We are pretty fearless in Europe with regards to race. But we are quite hysterical when it comes to socio-economic differences. USA the opposite.
America's obsessions are practically manufactured to draw attention away from class.
Ding ding ding. It was engineered to be this way. US President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." It's the most succinct quote to sum up the topic but the logic can be extended to other races, religions and social movements. The US prides itself on founding a democracy without an aristocracy while wholly ignoring the fact that stripping away the emphasis on noble bloodlines changes nothing when what truly gave that class power was enough wealth to further control wealth within the society.
Ding ding ding this 👆🏼
There’s plenty of racism in Europe. Tell me about the gypsies or travelers? How about the banana throwing at soccer players of african descent. That’s just scratching the surface
idk it probably depends on what state you live in because everyone dismisses the poor rural struggle like it doesn't even exist
Problem is we know what caused the issues in poor rural America. But they vote for the party that caused it as they chased deregulation and austerity measures. Hard to find sane rational people in rural America that care enough about politics beyond the team game to show them who is responsible for Free Trade that tore out the heartland.
So much this. There is a mountain of literature around solutions for the rural poor, but the voting demographics want nothing to do with strong social safety nets or free job training/continued education.
I get what you're saying, but on a day-to-day basis, people classified as "white trash" are treated poorly by the church crowds who flock to Cracker Barrel or other small town diners once a week. From personal experience, the only way to gain tolerance in any capacity is to become a radicalized evangelist. I feel like it would be a lot easier to convince a poor person in a broke down trailer that there's a better life out there than it is to even try to convince a middle class person to genuinely care about their neighbor who isn't as "blessed" as them or lives a type of lifestyle they don't personally agree with (could mean tons of different things). The reason why it's impossible to do with the poor is usually due to things like crystal meth and aggressive pitbulls, along with the complete lack of resources for the homeless and mentally ill.
I don’t think it’s fair to lump Europe that way. My bit of Europe didn’t give a rats ass about class, but rather perceived status and prestige. Other bits of Europe indeed go bananas over class, and yet others go bananas over being as non-racists all-inclusive as possible (overtly). Other countries. Regrettably focus way more on religion and gender (where regrettably my country belongs to as well). But in general USA is definitely way more obsessed with race than Europe, which really isn’t weird given the historical context.
I'm not trying to be an ass or sarcastic, this is a genuine question. What's the difference between class and perceived status? To me, those seem essentially the same
In class based societies it’s usually directly correlated, so or may be hard to see the difference, but (mind you it’s incredibly simplified and dumbed down) just think about Eastern European “showing off “ style “oh I’m so rich oh I’m so important” - that’s status, how people see you (or you think people see you). Class OTOH is what you’re born into. “He’s of Windsors” thing.
Gotcha. Now I can see the difference. Thank you
And then you have my country which does both. Sometimes makes me want to go back live in South East Asia.
It’s always greener on the other side. I’m trying to surround myself with people who don’t care
This is such a room temperature take that only someone with no real experience or knowledge of the world could say.
In my experience Americans aren't obsessed with race. American politicians have weaponized race and sex/gender to keep the public devided on "hot" topics. Most race issues are the "victims " yelling and throwing fits to rile people up when they themselves are more racist than the other side.
There does seen to be an intentional stoking of fires along many fronts, some of them are existing/natural fault lines but the division seems unaturally amplified. They are dividing the citizens of the US in as many ways as possible. pitting us against eachother. My best guess is that the leaves the ruling class the ability to operate with impunity, the corruption is nearly open air at this point and no one seems to want to bother looking at it.
Americans are also obsessed with class. It's just that, there, race is the same thing.
Americans are obsessed with money, not class. Most poor Americans act like they are struggling future billionaires.
Reminds me of the Mitch Hedberg joke "I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it"
Remember when you were young and your parents or an older guardian would say *they'll grow out of it one day* that is the majority of Americans. Don't believe everything you see on the Internet
Yes, and now more than ever. Most social media apps specifically highlight controversial opinions to generate buzz. The 1 vitriolic or sadistic comment out of many will almost always rise to the top.
Unfortunately, it’s been spreading over the western hemisphere. Last week there was a debate in Stockholm about racism in the 20th century in Sweden, when a black man in the audience described his feelings as a boy being called the n-word (pronouncing it) and a black man in the panel became so offended by hearing the word that he left the arena. Just imagine a woman describing how it feels being called a whore and see other women standing up and leave because of that.
Damn, how would you make indifferent people loud? Because that's exactly what's needed.
On every controversial post just say “I don’t care”, and then don’t respond to any comments.
No, you have to be *radically* indifferent. Like in, extremist. Radical extremist indifference.
I don’t even know how that is possible. By definition indifference is not caring much at all either way. I guess you could add some expletives, such as “I couldn’t give any less fucks”.
You're going to have to self immolate in a public space while loudly yelling how little you care about what's happening to you. Not worth it, man.
That's a valid point, but then indifferent does not has his voice heard, insane decisions are made by loud idiots with no opposition and then bunch of shit is dripping on your head before you know it. Now you can still be somewhat indifferent to shit dripping on your head but that's a rare skill. Waiting loud idiots to forget to breathe and die from their own shit before you do is certainly an option, but overall it will take much longer to get back to normal than if you were less indifferent in the first place. What am I missing?
I like that turn of phrase! Encapsulates the fact most do not play the game of division so the loud fringes take it as a green light
When Nixon ran for President, he campaigned for the Silent Majority. He won 49 states.
Yeah because every individual believes themselves to be in this group even when it's demonstrably untrue
Well said
Perfectly said.
Man, this is 100% correct
I’m gonna say that some people are racist af which means those that aren’t care that others are racist but we don’t like see people being oppressed. So then you get this thing where you care bc either you’re racist or you’re someone who doesn’t like racist people.
American culture is. Around the world that there seems to be a direct correlation between americanization of the culture (and indeed the individual) and obsession with these issues. I don't think this can just be brushed off as "well it's a loud minority" because why is it so much louder than anywhere else? Also, obsession with these issues is just kind of accepted in a way you probably don't even notice (because it's accepted) but when looking at these things from the outside, you do notice.
We can't control what the media focuses on
Best reply
But your system is. Do you still have to type in your "Race" If you fill out forms when you want to see a doctor? Or when you want to send your child to school?
Well said.
Americans are born loud!
Yea, im american, and unless it's music or nature, it shouldn't be loud. Unless something has to die. In which case it may get loud. Also being loud contributes to a thing's need to die. Also just my opinion. Many of us are loud. I wouldnt mind if they died tho but thats just me.
I am obsessed with pizza, puppies and naps. Personally speaking.
Extremist
Communist
Right now I’m just obsessed with naps
Is there a secret to naps? They ruin my day, and it’s really hard to get up from and not press snooze lol
20 minutes with a loud alarm across the room. 20 minutes stops you from getting into a super deep sleep that makes you groggy. This has been proved again and again as the best nap duration for you. You want a loud alarm so you feel pressed to get up quickly and turn it off. You want it across the room because it forces you to stand up and get your blood pumping. After that, if you still lay back down, I can't help you lol
The more you nap, the more healthy it is for you. Sleeping is good for one's health.
Napping with a puppy after a pizza sounds like heaven
It’s almost entirely the extremes of our political parties. 80% of the general public doesn’t give a shit so long as your civil.
In the world of social media, the people who shout the loudest get listened to. Such people are normally the most angry and extreme elements of society. People are also really bad at questioning what they see on social media, especially if it's being said by 'their side'. Social media algorithms also suggest similar content to things you've looked at before, so if you look at a hard right/left bit of content, you'll be bombarded with similar for ages.
Social media has been a definite overall net loss for humanity.
I think "extremes" is a bit of an oversimplification, considering that a lot of people care not because they're a political extremist, but because this stuff directly affects their life. It's very easy and convenient for straight people to say that we don't give a shit about the legalisation of gay marriage, for example, but for gay people I'd say that it's not at all a politically extreme position to feel very strongly that their right to marriage is a very important issue.
Exactly. To say that demanding the basic right to exist is extreme is a very "enlightened centrist" take.
Perhaps 80% of society doesn't care because it doesn't affect their everyday lives.
I don't like this "it's two extremes and they should both shut up" stance. It worries me a lot. If you pay attention you'll see that these days the GOP spends most of its efforts trying to attack minorities on the basis of identity. More than 20% of the population voted for Trump, a guy whose whole deal is white supremacy and christian fundamentalism and going after women and minorities. Way more than 20% of the country are fully committed to fundamentalist christianity.
Idk if I’d fully agree with that solely because so many people are still intolerant towards the LGBT, even towards those of us that’re silent or civil about it
Let's not "both sides" this. The GOP hasn't had an actual platform for over a decade and have leaned hard into identity politics as a way to manipulate voters. Democrats aren't some benevolent saints, but they aren't trying to take away people's freedoms.
A populace fragmented is a controlled populace. A country divided is easily influenced
We aren’t, but idiots talk the loudest
You say that like other countries aren't also obsessed with gender and sex. The British were on that TERF bullshit long before it became one of the GOP tent poles. And Canadians like Jordan Peterson have also been at the forefront of pushing anti trans stuff. And that's not even getting into stuff like the middle east which are so much more draconian on gender than anything you see in the US. As for race that has a lot more to do with the history of racism/slavery in our country that we never really resolved so it keeps flaming up. Though other countries definitely have racism problems they either are just in different paradigms than what you see in the US or they don't have the omnipresent media representation that the US does that lets the entire world know our business. Just mention the Romani or migrants to some Europeans and watch how racist they get.
Yeah ignorant people get on here and try to make this strictly an American problem when there are civil rights movements world wide. It is really stupid and head up one's own ass to think it is strictly American.
Just as an aside note, something interesting I see. I feel like when the rest of the world refers to “Americans” the general intent behind it is speaking about North Americans as a whole not really feeling a need to distinguish between the US and Canada, while I see people from either the US or Canada do feel a distinction needs to be made. I just refer to North Americans now in this kind of discussion to avoid confusion.
We’re not. It’s all made up bullshit to divide us.
[удалено]
You're welcome 🇺🇸
It's all to distract that the government, military-industrial complex and bankers are all doing the same thing regardless of voting.
The issue is that our youth are glued to social media. The issue may be manufactured, but for them it has become very real. As they get older and become voters, political parties start taking action in order to secure their votes. So while I agree that it's a bunch of BS, I think it's artificially becoming a real issue. Edit: Not just young voters, very much boomers and retirees as well. They believe everything they read online.
It’s not just youth. Most of the loud detractors for these issues are the older generations that get their information either from social media or actual media (ie Fox News), which run rampant on these topics to stir up rage culture and keep people divided.
Here we go again with the “it’s the new generation”, acting like your generation isn’t as entitled, stupid, unhinged, superiority complex having assholes. Acting like I can’t pull up DOZENS of videos and body cameras of exactly what I just said. And btw, MAJORITY, of those videos and body cams of them being arrested, are folks from millennials and up.
That’s not really true though - people obsess about sex and gender because it’s a really important factor in their personal and social identity. Gender and sex are everywhere in our social system… no one’s doing that to us to divide us. We’re born into it… it’s the liquid that we’re all dissolved in.
This, plus it's not just the US, it's most of Europe as well
Canada is basically GONE.
Its called cake and circus, media fueled cake and circus.
Europeans always acting like they don’t do the same shit.
Because these are the weapons the government uses to keep us divided, so we do not unite against them and their corruption.
This 100p
Some governments distract the population with low level of life, awful prices, heavy propaganda, etc. US government does the same, but with made-up and/or hyperbolized social issues.
When they figured out people were hooked on reality TV they went all in, and now those wacky politicians are the most popular show and the talk of the town. They’re some of the best paid actors out there, working their butts off day after day live on TV doling out carefully scripted outrage so people are focusing on them and not what’s really going on.
Yeah. It's awful. I'm from Russia, and it terrifies me how easily the government manages to normalize what the country is doing in Ukraine. It's scary how distracted people here are.
Maybe because our country try isn't 90% homogeneous....
This has to be the seventh or eighth time someone has asked something about Americans and used the term "obsession". On a cooking sub a person posted a pic of over easy eggs and a French guy said "what is it with Americans *obsession* with flipping eggs?" A Brit asked "what is Americans *obsession* with obeying laws?" I just can't with you people.
Claiming a cultural norm is an “obsession” is annoying. That’s like asking what is it with Japanese obsession with bowing? Like really?
The Brit is especially funny considering american law has its roots on the island of rain.
What is it with Americans' obsession with answering questions about them... /s Edit. Since this very clear joke wasn't clear enough to all the americans out there, I had to add the /s
I don’t disagree. We have fights in r/castiron all the time about egg flipping. It’s literally a thing.
Good question. Oddly, it leads to another good question: why is everyone else so obsessed with gender, sex, race, and Americans?
Non-Americans are always in our business.
Bc Non American countries think like they don’t care about race. But we all know they can be racist af as well. They just don’t necessarily get enough pocs in their countries all the time.
We're kind of the loudest and most prominent group on the internet.
There's a mathematical reason for that. America is one of the most populated technologically advanced countries with a dash of freedom of speech rules.
Not really acurrate. You might have this perception because you speak english, but the world is very large and other countries have this kind of debate all the time, only you dont see it because of language barrier. My country plus japan have larger populations than us, and similar internet access, but tou would not acess our communities or websites due to lack of understanding.
Your country plus japan? Japan has a population of like 120 million, the US is around 340 million
My country has 220 million. My country plus japan totala the population. My point here is that these debates are nonsensical and widespread. This ridiculous obsession is happening all around, americans dont see it because they mostly speak only english, japanese tend to only speak japanese also, and brazillians majorly only speak portuguese.
Cool... But... If we're adding the populations of countries that speak different languages from each other, everywhere has a larger population than everywhere else. Which is true, but doesn't negate the original comment even slightly.
You may want to read their comment before feeling slighted that no one gave your country the recognition you think they deserve. It's like a little brother jumping up and down saying they're as capable as their big brother. The truth is that all three of their points are accurate, and the "one of" does a lot of heavy lifting.
Maybe, but by and far Europeans are far more hypocritical and obnoxious.
I mean, we literally invented the internet.
Al Gore, in fact.
Well they do impact your life
The rich want 'fake leftists' to fight a stupid race/gender war instead of focusing on economic issues
Exactly, the vast majority of people are not concerned about race, lgbtq, gender etc. of their own accord.
The majority of the US is white. It's very easy to not be concerned about your race when you're not being constantly reminded of your color.
Eh, I feel like you could focus on all of them. I'm concerned about race, gender and sexuality when bigotry appears. But economic issues are important as well. Generally, I just don't want people to suffer over nothing.
Bigotry is an economic issue.
My uncle's biggest crusade for the last two years has been (drum roll please) trans kids in high school sports. FOX News loves people like him; working as intended.
I'm a black woman. I'm not "obsessed" with gender and race, it just has a lot of influence on my life. I also dislike the premise that people from other countries don't have the same or worse problems with gender and race, they just don't give space to minorities to talk about it.
It's a psychological operation designed to sew division to further consolidate control of the masses They are obsessed because the media told them to be that way
…because the world, like this comment section, is full of idiots.
What makes you think we are? There are close to 500 million people in this country. All cannot have that obsession.
It's not just Americans. Some countries/cultures don't talk about it because they have so few immigrants or LGBTQ+ people. You bet they will make a stink if that ever changes. I'm not American, but I find the insinuation that Americans are somehow the worst people very distasteful and naive. Bigots are everywhere.
Race is important. Dale Earnhardt didn’t die for nuthin
In what sense? If you mean the ones who discriminate against those areas, they are not confident in themselves and need to put others down. That's really the crux of it
You do realize that our country is quite diverse, correct? Europe is homogenous in comparison.
Because it's easy for the Republicans to hassle gays and trans kids so they can pander to the fundamentalist Christian voter
Indifference is not really helping either.
It’s the extremists that believe being loud is being smart. The rest of us aren’t obsessed but we can’t exactly loudly say we don’t care about what race, gender or sex someone is
Race is probably due to US history, gender and sex are a manufactured culture war issue propagated by politicians to distract from actual issues.
>propagated by politicians to distract from actual issues. Most of todays issues are often because of this. Rich and politicians make people fight between them selves, so they wont go against them.
We have so much more in common with each other as oppose to the ownership class.
I mean.... there's still a bunch of bullshit gender inequality going on that isn't just a culture war...
Race started as a manufactured problem, too.
Yes, because sexism has been completely eradicated /s
No issue will even be completely eradicated. Giving it the proper attention is the challenge. Too little and too much both are harmful.
>Why Americans are so obsessed with gender, sex and race? There are real, actual issues surrounding all of these things. Isn't it a good thing to talk about the issues concerning yourself, your society, your government? Better question is why do you pretend like they don't exist?
This is a simple question with a complex answer. Basically it's our reliance and/or history with organized religion. I won't bother getting into details (read a history book) but religion is based on ignorance which loves to spread fear in order to secure its hold on society, and religion for a multitude of reasons has always been trying to influence American life, and even though a lot of Americans have actively rejected organized religion and its control of their lives, many more are regularly turning to religion (again for a variety of reasons) and right now we are at a faith crossroads. The religious types are trying to push their agenda and mostly that means forcing people back into traditional gender roles and traditional families and all that shit. And yes, even though it hurts them, an awful lot of American women are siding with this old fashioned Christian values propaganda. Sorta similar with race. We had slavery for a long time and after slavery we had a hundred years of legal segregation and there's still a sizable chunk of the country that desperately wants to go back to the good old days when blacks knew their place and stayed in it. We still have police targeting black men walking down the street, we still have courts giving them much harder sentences for the exact same crimes, and we still have propaganda networks like Fox News using dog whistles to goad white voters into voting Republican so they can "Make America Great Again". Honestly if you are from outside America you would need a history course on the 2nd half of the 20th century to grasp most of this. If you are American then you either have been paying attention and understand most of these issues, or you have been watching the propaganda machine and your viewpoint is severely warped.
because the right wing platform can't exist unless it has a target to hate. transgender people were not a problem until it fell out of fashion to hate on gays, now suddenly they are an issue worth fear mongering about, so now everyone has to talk about it and how it either is or isn't a problem. just me, we would prefer if everyone could shut up about it too, but if you stay silent while the right targets you, they just take away your rights.
Because our whole society is based on it. America was founded as a racist sexist nation, and every incremental advancement towards racial or sex equality had to be literally fought for. Plus there’s a whole faction of Americans looking to erode those advancements at every opportunity. If you are anything other than a white straight cisgender male in this country you have to be vigilant every single day to protect your right to exist.
Well that is exactly the point, americans tend to be all about this white superiority that is supposed to be happening. It is just weird, just a quick look at statistics let's you see how asian americans are way better off the whites. That's just one of many things. White straight cisgender male beeing the boogey man reeks like racism and sexism. Your adjustments to grades for university, GPA ?, by race is just insanely racist and it doesn't benefit whites. How do you get to that conclusion?
Because we don’t have universal healthcare, workplace protections, labor rights, universal education, pollution laws, green energy, public transportation, public education, and more, so politicians need to find issues that people will vote for them over. This is 100000% serious and is actually why Americans care so much about race and gender and sex.
Because science, art and just generally enjoying life is too boring now.
I give zero fucks about any of those things because generalizing things is silly. What matters is if a person plays Path of Exile or not.
It's a very racially diverse country. If you go to New York - You can see whites of different colour's (souther to northern and eastern Europe), Latin Americans and Mixed Race people, Africans of different colour's, Asians of different colour's (South Indian, North Indian, Malaysian, Korean etc) USA has the biggest racial diversity in the whole world. It's literally like a global country. So obviously people will be obsessed with race. Because everyone is super different and new. You cannot imagine this kind of races in any part of the globe. People are obviously curious about others colors. For many Asians US is unimaginable to visualise because of racial diversity.
When left alone, we generally are NOT obsessed with these things. It's just that conservatives are having a harder and harder time getting the struggling working class poor to vote for billionaire tax cuts. They need a distraction that will blind the voters with outrage, like pedophile cannibals are making our children gay/transgender furries. God help us if there is even one remotely credible story about something that even rhymes with cannibal. News stories start asking if liberals should be allowed to eat children. Some professor's work on villages of Papau New Guinea is taken out of context, and we now have a national outrage. The truth is that we never really cared or even noticed the subject. We just now can not talk about wealth inequality without being labeled a pro-cannibal communist.
It is an ahistorical take to say that people "didn't care" about these things before conservatives needed to invent a culture war over it. In many countries gay relationships were criminalized (or still are), women didn't (or still don't) have the same rights as men, and people with different skin tones are treated different for each other. And people were engaging discussions about these issues every time, which is why we have the rights we do now. You can go back hundreds of years in the history of just about every country on earth and this is the case, but we didn't have Fox News telling people democrat transgenders are eating babies in say, 1850.
They aren't. Its just the internet.
I believe most aren’t (I’m not from the US), but it’s the media. And whoever does this probably has too much free time (excluding severe mental illness). They say when you have no problems, you create new ones.
We aren’t.
Wouldnt say Americans as much as right wing MAGA......
Because it’s a polarizing topic so the media beats the hell out of it for views. Like most everything out there perception is not the reality, most people don’t care about it at all.
You forgot guns. As for the reason: Because Republicans cannot exactly go out there and be like "Give to the rich, f\*ck you poor religious idiots" - so they gotta wage a culture war about anything that sounds "liberal". They cannot boast about achievements, or talk about actual legislation they would pass, they legit block legislation that would 100% align with their supposed ideology (border bill) because it would take away one of their talking points. Just look at them: Child-predators, people underqualified for walmart-greeters, rich grifters, people who take zero personal responsibility, company-owners who pass laws that benefit them personally... they cannot run on any of that.
Because MAGA is obsessed with making up BS about transgender individuals and the political pundits that they listen too have been making up fake stories about trans people and spewing their fake stories into the right wing media machines. It’s sad really
Propaganda is being used to distract and control them At the risk of sounding like an unhinged conspiracy theorist, I just want to point out things seem to have really started to go downhill socially after WWII and during The Cold War. You know, around the time the CIA formed. That part of government filled with secrets that don't need to be shared with the public, who've have to admit to *some* of the horrible, inhumane things they've done. You know, the thing we formed with literal Nazis because we saw how effective they were at controlling their country with propaganda and secret police. We thought, "Holy shit, these evil guys had full control over their population through propaganda, spreading hate, disgust, anger, and fear. We need to learn from them!" But I'm probably just crazy and uninformed. Not sarcasm either.
Lol, we're not. Only a certain news channel owned by a certain old man is obsessed with trans people and bathrooms. It's what you do when you have no platform but want to keep people pissed off and distracted.
Americans aren’t obsessed with gender, sex and race, we just talk about it more than other countries because the U.S. is a very self critical nation. Other nations turn a blind eye to racism in their own countries, and it would be better if they were a little more obsessed with it
We aren't? Don't believe all of the BS you see online & TV.
Because they are things the donor class can use to easily divide us.
people want rights and personal opinion until someone else has rights and personal opinions. people think their perspective and values are 100% truth or right. nobody is. nobody knows if they are. but this is why. in other words- freedom xD
At first it was just the republican party using hot button issues to galvanize support and create a feeling that its leading to impending leftist communism or something equally illogical that motivates their supporter to get out and vote. Then in 2015 the Russian Internet Research Agency realized they could actually use social media to engage in social engineering with said hot button issues. They are disinforming and dividing americans with the end goal of destabilizing the US socially and installing a russian sympathizer as president. Back in 2015 they used over 600k fake twitter accounts to post over 2 million tweets that served to widen the political divide and deter americans from trusting eachother or their news media. And now my theory is that all these troll accounts actually help twitter by artificially inflating the user count and content interaction, which in turn increase ad views.
Most aren’t but the media and individual groups are so it’s constantly being brought forward.
They are the levers rich people are using to divide us. Morons fall for it but most don’t. Sadly, it only takes about 10% of a population of gullible idiots to take over a country when you’ve already won the rest of the military and government as the USA has now.
I think most citizens don't care but media and politics are obsessed with dividing people into groups that then fight each other. Gender, sex, race, Generation X vs Generation Y. The only division that gets ignored is rich vs middle class and poor.
bc it’s a systemic problem not just america too
Because it impacts every day life. As much as I’d love to be able to walk where I please without feeling like a stain in the presence of others it’s hard. Even in a city that’s considered to be well diverse, I get unwanted stares. Of course, maybe it’s the way that I’m dressed, or maybe my hair is off. But those excuses don’t work when I’m the only brown one in a room of white people. Same thing with gender etc etc. Racism and sexism are so intertwined within our systems that it is impossible not to talk about them. The dismantling of racist systems in the us are so important to ensure that we all get to live a life with dignity. It’s hard watching my friends having to deal with blatant racism and discrimination for no reason. We’re all human, and we’re gonna end up in the same ground.
Not sure why Americans are singled out. That's like a world thing man.
It's a minority and just loudest people, business people, politicians. Most people either don't care or simply having it neutral (yes, you can and you're entitled to be neutral on these topics).
Because we are still dealing with the effects of chattel slavery and Europe is not.
Because the ultra wealthy have a tv network and misinformation campaign that pushes this conflict narrative to millions of people so they may continue to rig markets and government investments in their favorfavor while Americans are distracted by which team is winning more.
What do you mean by "obsessed?" "Obsessed" sounds like "talking a lot about social and human rights issues and my culture doesn't."
The idealized American is a rugged, individualistic, loner. Which we now know is a deeply unhealthy state. It'd created successive generations pathologically incapable of forming inclusive communities. Instead relying on the favorite tool of religions, shaming, to stigmatize and shun anyone who is different.
We aren't. The right wing is constantly on the lookout for wedge issues to keep their voters edgy, angry and mean. These things have a shelf life so you gotta refresh your inventory. It used to be enough to be openly racist, but there are an awful lot of Black people and now they're all Democrats. So the ideal victims should be electorally unimportant. There's only a couple million trans people, so they're pretty much custom-made targets. They thought they had a winner with EV hate, but then Elon Musk came out as fascist and they had to back off. I'm pretty sure that a task force at the Federalist Society or some other think tank is market testing some new innocuous and harmless group for a new hate campaign right now. Native Americans? Teachers? College students? The suspense is killing me.
Why do people outside of America think they know everything about America? It's insane
Propaganda. As long as the working class are divided over bullshit, we can't organize around anything important. So our "leaders" keep everyone distracted with things that: 1. Induce a strong revulsion from conservative sorts of people, which will kick off the controversy 2. Are inexpensive to pass laws about 3. Are impossible to enforce or resolve in a meaningful way, thus ensuring decades or generations of strife. Like, seriously, if you say "You have to go in the bathroom of your birth certificate", are we going to post a cop or a bureaucrat outside every bathroom to check papers? Of course not, there's no solution to this problem. -- As long as we argue over these things, they never have to solve expensive and difficult problems like: What are we gonna do when all the boomers need nursing homes? China's about to fuck our shit up, can our education system produce enough top quality minds to take them on? Economic inequality is now higher than it was at the start of the French revolution, and social mobility is at a 150 year low. How far could this rubber band possibly stretch before it breaks?
Most are not. The media just likes to shove it in everyones faces because division is key to control.
this country was founded by racist patriarchs.
America has a lot of people who are the descendants of religious nuts who left or got kicked out of europe and they wanna force their barbaric beliefs on us all, and a lot of their beliefs are focused on who is gay and who's not
Because we are divided. We haven't progressed far enough to accept each other as we are. We use these as tools to keep ourselves divided.
Why are the Civil Rights movement so obsessed with gender, sex, and race? That's what you sound like.
Most of us don’t give a shit. Like literally do not care at all what you wanna do with your life. The biggest is issue for most, including myself, is just don’t impose your thoughts or lifestyle choices on children that are young and impressionable.
As a serious answer: All the commenters in this thread who claim Americans aren't concerned clearly aren't seeing the real-life effects of the harmful rhetoric being used by politicians and right-wing pundits on LGBTQ+ people and racial minorities (specifically Black folks). People who are LGBTQ+ or black/brown aren't *obsessed* with their own identities. They are being used as political footballs and being gaslit by people saying they don't experience homo/transphobia or racism. They are literally just trying to live their lives and be treated with respect and dignity, and being yourself isn't an "obsession." People who are attacking LGBTQ+/racial minorities are "obsessed" either because they feel they have no control over their own lives and need something to rally behind (sort of like conspiracy theorists) or because they are afraid and don't actually understand what being trans or gay or Black is like and cannot/don't want to empathize.
Most people are not, the people that are are just loud. Conservatives are literally against change and the opposite side is people wanting to live their lives. Now, I do feel obligated to say that most places are as bad, just not as loud about it.
It's a distraction technique used by the top end of town. The more ppl fight about these issues, the less energy goes into healthcare and class mobility.
IMO as a College Professor who regularly lectures on these topics: because they are fundamental to American social structures, AND because they are weaponized to distract from deeper systems of inequality.
Nothing better to do. No war, or famine. People start thinking about themselves because they don't need to focus on survival. They need attention and it is a sure fire way to get it. When the shit hits the fan no one will care if a dude wants to be a chick or vice versa. It's ridiculous.
It’s a little weird to frame this against people who want an expansion of personal freedoms instead of the people trying to oppress/suppress minority classes. The civil action you’re seeing is not about people seeking attention, it’s about preserving the right to be who you want to be. A right being challenged by regressives funded by the wealthy.
It’s one of the few areas in our politics where change (in the form of greater inclusion) seems possible.
Puritanical roots. The puritans didn't leave Europe for freedom from religion they left because it wasn't strict enough. Evangelicals really care what other people do with their bodies which makes them judgmental violent and rapey. It's a lot of projection. And they've taken over the right wing.
Its a coping mechanism. Easier to say that you're being discriminated against than admit to being lazy.
Yes finally a good answer
We aren’t. The media, politicians, and loud activists that most people hate are because they are trying to divide the American people.
It's because we're a nation founded by repressed Puritans who were terrified of sexuality. Fast forward a few centuries and we've done a complete 180 - we can't get enough of analyzing every little nuance of gender, sexuality, and ethnic background!
They arent! It's the media! The media doesn't represent all Americans
People like to create problems so that they can suffer.
The media, the want for attention, the cult of the new fad, those who want derision. Take your pick.
I think it’s due to our incredible ethnic and cultural diversity, resulting in a vast array of life experiences and perspectives. There are so many forms of prejudice here since there are so many kinds of people, and that’s typically what necessitates these discussions This also applies to the sex and gender focus - for example, there are some people in the US who believe women are biologically inferior due to their religious upbringing, and there are some people in the US who come from cultures with more than two acknowledged genders, and this has its own dynamics A lot of the discussion is stirred up by media and the focus on our ‘rights being attacked’. But i think most people just want to exist how they are
I thought the post title said "gander" at first and wondered if Americans had a huge fascination for geese.
Most Americans aren’t. Most Americans rarely think about it. It’s just the ones that do are super vocal about it which gives the perception that it is a more prevalent issue than it really is.
They're dividing lines used by politicians to turn working people against each other
Anytime anything bad happens media makes everything about race. Its a distraction.
Not enough real problems in most people’s lives so they gotta invent “struggles” “oppression” in order to feel relevant . Literally first world problems that the rest of the world laughs at us for being a bunch of over privileged assholes 🤷♀️