As background, I’m the only American member of my immediate family. I was born here, left as an infant, came back at 21 and have lived in the US since 1979. My parents and siblings live variously in Israel, the UK, Spain and Berlin and none have US citizenship. Apart from my mother, who left this country 47 years ago, none have done more than the occasional visit to the US, and none within the last decade. I’ve visited them in their countries quite regularly.
Since 9/11, I’ve been the regaled with anti-Bush commentary (fine by me) and anti-American commentary (not always OK with me.) On 9-11, the day of mind you, I got an email from the Berlin brother saying “haha, that’s what America gets for its foreign policy.” I did call him on that and demanded & got an apology. Very mean spirited, I thought.
I’m as willing as the next person to discuss hot topics like gun control, the last election and what have you.
But every single bloody inter-family discussion ends up with family members calling the US the most violent country in the world, an evil capitalistic empire, full of idiot right wing and religious fundies and generally way less evolved than oh-so reasonable and sensible Europe.
And I’m starting to get really sick of it. I’ve quit arguing and discussing because I’m tired of debating any of their Euro-centered uber-liberal simplistic views of the USA, especially since none of them freaking live here.
For the record - I’m quite liberal, blue state, Democrat-voting and non-religious (which the Israeli family cadre has a dim view of.) I’m not in the slightest bit jingoistic; I barely regard myself as truly American, since I didn’t grow up here.
In the last week; one week mind you:
I sent a cute joke making fun of Bush’s intelligence (or lack thereof) to several friends & family members. My Israeli-by-way-of-England lawyer brother in law’s single sentence response, quoted verbatim:
“This merely reflects the stupidity of all you redneck Americans who voted for him (except California and New York.)”
I’m fine, and how are you doing? :rolleyes: (No, I didn’t vote for Bush, and I live in a Midwestern blue state, thank you very much.)
A diatribe by my brother in Spain (very well off advertising exec type) wherein he called America the most violent country on earth, and if we only had the intelligence to ban all firearms like they have in Europe, violent crime would all but disappear. Oh, and it’s our fault that firearm crimes are rising in Europe, too. This was during an interfamily email exchange on various topics.
And today, a link sent only to me by the Israel brother in law, no salutation or anything. Just a link to a rather nasty little video clip showing a police vehicle hitting a fleeing suspect, titled “Justice, Texas Style.”
I’m really tempted to respond in kind. That came up top of the page when I googled “Justice Israeli style.” I won’t, because I’m just trying to ignore all this and avoid bad feelings. Though it would be rather nice if I was awarded the same courtesy.
This is neither eloquent of having any really important points, I suppose. I just felt like venting and this seemed a good enough place as any.
And to throw this out - does it sound on the face of it that I’m justified in taking some of this a tad personally?
:eek: Wow! You’re own family talks to you like this? Politics aside, that’s pretty fucked up. I’d take it personally. They’re calling you a redneck, blaming your country for 9/11, and insinuating that police brutality is the norm.
I’d say they’re crossing limits.
Some limits must be set–and soon, by you. Myself, I would go for dignified and genuine, not snarky and tit for tat.
Some in the family will stop and then there are the jerks. Jerks don’t have to be responded to, IMO. Answer all their vitriol with comments about the weather. Sooner or later, it’ll click in.
That, unfortunately, is how the rest of the world regards America. Get used to it.
I really don’t understand the mindset of your family’s interaction with you. You’re an American. They think Americans are stupid, heavily armed, violent lunatics. What to they do? They take every opportunity to make fun of you and mock your country. Does that strike anyone else as really, really stupid? If I thought someone was as dangerous and unstable as they seem to think Americans are, I’d be going out of my way to be as nice to them as possible, purely out of self preservation.
I’ve had too much experience with people who can’t face their personal conflicts and work them out with political shouting. The best thing is just to ignore it. It’s not like you’re going to change anybody’s mind.
I am surprised to hear this coming from an Israeli, though. Do they want to send the aid back? How about the military hardware?
Actually, as much as you’d probably like it to be true, it isn’t. There are plenty of people in the world who disagree with Bush, and even dislike Americans themselves, who are capable of being polite. It seems to me that the problem in the OP’s case isn’t that his family doesn’t “agree” with America, it is that they are being obnoxious jerks about it.
Oops, well I just sent off a politely snarky reply to the last salvo, which may not have been wisest in maintaining harmonious family relations but I feel a bit better now. Against the quite sensible advice given so far to be polite and ignore it.
I’ve been quite patient and noncombative about this so far but Jeez.
Sadly, my family tends to interact on a pretty superficial level for the most part, and I think this might be a passive-aggressive way of letting out some hostilities, as Larry Borgia pointed out; nice insight.
In my experience, American policy is quite often reviled (and at times rightly so) but Americans themselves are not, necessarily. Unless they are Ugly Americans, or jerks.
I must say it does feel odd sometimes to return to the UK, where I went through the school system, university and even voted once, and feel like an American visitor.
Ha. My snarky response (Larry Borgia, I lifted one of your lines. I hope you don’t mind!) I linked to a definition of redneck and blue states.
This to the Israeli brother in law, who does not like me much because he thinks I do not respect his religion, and he is very fundamentalist in his religious views.
“Respectively, could we please all stop with the America-bashing? Unless you all want to send the financial aid and military hardware back.
I know it’s fashionable in Europe, but I’m starting to take this a bit personally. The brutish act of some Texas cops is not any more reflective of our policing than it would be of the policing (or judicial decisions) in many other countries.
And, for the record, I am not a redneck, I did not vote for Bush and states other than California and New York are blue states, including Michigan, where I currently live.
Thank you.”
Hmm… maybe part of the deal may be the fact that you have chosen to exercise your Americanness, rather than be a European or Israeli – not so much for the geopolitics but for the choice to follow a different way of living.
FWIW yes, it’s annoying to be a liberal, progressive, anti-Bushite who feels there are a lot of things about the USA that need fixin’, and then find oneself having to defend the country from those who believe that it’s some sort of malignancy on the body of humanity. There;s consolation in that like ** Ravenman** mentions, that attitude towards things American it’s not universal around the world, not any more than Ann Coulter or Michael Savage are indicative of how most Americans feel and act.
Um, why don’t you? I’m as liberal and as far from jingoistic as can be, but I’d be damned if I’d let an Israeli criticize my government for police brutality. Not that I’m particularly offended on behalf of the U.S. - I’m just offended on behalf of logic and reason. I mean, seriously, an Israeli criticizing the United States and claiming our government is unjust and brutal? The irony might make my head explode.
Anyway, I just wouldn’t tolerate it. Tell them it’s not okay for them to make comments like that about your country and your citizenship. Because it’s not. And tolerating them acting that way is just going to ensure that it continues.
And it’s awful easy to come up with ways to criticize Europeans along the same lines. Germany’s treatment of Turkish guestworkers, Spain’s amazingly high rate of drug use and its attendant problems, and so on and so forth. Far better for everyone to have the class not to tar individual people by the worst actions of their government or countrymen. But you have to call them out on it - if you don’t, it’s not like anyone else is gonna.
I can’t speak for elsewhere, but I assure you that is not the case in my little corner of the world.
I think you’re being far too restrained.
That sucks. I have the opposite problem, my mom is a radical right wing fundie. She is a shut in who gets all her info on politics from talk radio and various right wing TV shows. She believes that shows like O’Reilly and Michael Savage are ‘normal’ and everything else is ‘liberal’.
Luckily it is nowhere near as abusive as your situation. Its not abusive at all in fact, just very exasperating. Its very tiring. I don’t feel like pretending like I think people in PETA are idiots, or everyone in the democratic party is a traitor, or environmentalists are wackos, or John McCain is crazy because he doesn’t want people to get tortured. Politics sucks sometimes.
For the Isreali guy, just send him an e-mail praising his own country, where the army bulldozes the houses of politically unpopular ethnic groups. Sometimes without waiting for the occupants to leave first.
How does that Bible quote go? “Do not criticize your neighbor for the speck in his eye, while overlooking the plank in your own.”
Or the American protesters. That’s the first thing that came to my mind too.
I thought about that, but isn’t that New Testament? I’m not sure an Israeli would even recognize that . . .
Heh. Restrained. Not a term generally used to describe me.
Well, I did tit his tat and headed my response with this news story.
I think I’d find this easier to deal with than having a family of rightwing religious fundies, mind you. Way too much of an ideological gap.
Yeah, it’s a Jesus quote. Good point. It’s a good Wise Saying, though.
I have a friend who sometimes just won’t admit your point, and makes jingoistic and OTT statements. These usually happen in IM, as I don’t live near him now. I finally just started typing “OK” to anything he said when he got going. It finally got through to him, after all the arguing and pointing out his shortcomings didn’t. It’s like when a kid in HS used to ask me loud, mocking questions for the whole class to hear. What really worked was, “Thank you, Steve” to anything he said, no matter what. He can’t argue with that, and being polite back to him just highlights that he’s being a jerk.
I have a similar type of friend and I would respond in the same manner. (with a simple “ok” or I would just ignore him. Unfortunately instead of getting the hint, he would just go on and on, with stupid racist statements or something like that. Eventually I had to just terminate the friendship because it was mounting and I had the idea it was just my friend’s overcompensating for an emotional problem.
Jesus Christ. That monster was acquitted of all charges?!