Before I start, please understand this isn’t self-hate for my nation, I’m just having trouble being proud of it. I come from a more… Well-off family and I’ve moved around to many parts of America, due to my families line of work I’ve also lived in multiple other countries and travelled the world. When I come back to the US I always feel the same though. Ashamed that over half of the country being overweight, promoting unhealthiness, glorifying the wrong things, etc. I see enormous disrespect towards others and overall ignorance in countless people. I’ve found that I am interested in everything about other countries. For example, after spending 5 months in Japan, learning the language and being swooned with beautiful landscapes, towns, ridiculously courteous and well-mannered people with a rich and deep original culture built on tradition, politeness, and uniformity, (admittedly not always good), along with the well-established healthy lifestyle; I was overwhelmingly interested in spending more time learning about it.
Then I came back to the US and couldn’t bring myself to care about our very young and completely inspired culture. I don’t care that we started jazz, mardi gras, certain foods, etc. It makes me furious that the country was taken from an unsuspecting people, based everything on the prospect of freedom, and then enslaved multiple races to build it for us, and now it has turned into… This. Unlike many other places, we are shamed by our past and our countries foundation, or at least that’s how it seems. I am glad that we are very free, but so are most 1st world countries. I know, I know, "if you don’t like it you can get out" but I don’t want to do that just yet. I want to like our inspired culture. I want to be able to enjoy what we have, but I can’t. I love my friends, and family and plenty of things only in the US, but sometimes it just seems wrong.
Should I take my own advice and just get the hell out? Or should I keep trying even if I practically radiate this stuff. I figure the country doesn’t need or want a doubter like me, even if I’m trying.
In my experience… if you spend all your time focusing on what’s wrong with something, you’ll never learn to appreciate what’s right with it.
Every country has its flaws. Every country has points in it’s history that it’s less than proud of. You’ve seen the world, but keep in mind that you’ve seen it primarily as an outsider (even if you’ve spent 5 months in a country). You’re much more intimately familiar with your home country, and all it’s flaws… but people don’t go out of their way to share those flaws with visiting outsiders. It’s true here, and it’s true abroad.
Incidentally… Japan, too, was built on the back of slavery, in particular during the Shōwa era.