For Context: I’m Chinese American, and I do not feel “ashamed” for my heritage, neither do I feel “ashamed” for being a US Citizen.
The CCP is not my fault. I do not feel any shame of saying I’m from China.
Similarly, the trump admin is not my fault, I voted Harris. I do not feel any shame for being American.
So what is the thought process of people feeling shame/guilt?
China has been China-ing for a while, we get it. America’s actions are relatively fresh, and a majority of us DID choose him. While I’ll immediately reassure people that I didn’t vote for him, the fact that I have to separate myself from what’s going on comes from a sense of shame over that.
That said, if I met a Russian I wouldn’t necessarily hold the invasion of Ukraine against them… But I might have to ask if they really support that shit.
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Ok, a majority of voters, not a majority of us, but as another commenter said if you sat this one out you basically helped the winner and I’m absolutely going to blame you for it
Ok, a majority of voters
Plurality of voters, didn’t get more than 50% of all votes
We were raised with “pride,” not necessarily racially or ethnocentric, but a broader sense that transcended such boundaries. I grew up in the 80s-90s in the midwest, and we were taught America was a “melting pot” of cultures, ideas, and races, and that we should look forward to a time when whites are not the majority because the lines will fall away, the average color will be brown as we all mix over the next generations, giving us less reason to fight. And we should look forward to it, because that’s been our story so far - broken, impoverished immigrants came here looking for opportunity, and found it through hard work and smart thinking, and then became a part of our shared tapestry. We were taught to be proud of this, that we were stewards of this tradition in the best, most advanced country in the world.
And now, well. The basest instincts of people have been brought to the surface and America now stands as an openly white nationalist, isolationist, fascist-tinged autocracy where the ideals I grew up with seem long antiquated.
So yeah hard not to feel ashamed of what’s happened to our shared identity in just a few decades.
Ain’t that the truth. We were supposed to be better than this and we were supposed to be improving
I grew up in Indonesia, my sister is from Java, my brother is from Singapore. I’m natively from California, and I’m a huge white boy. I am ashamed that the country of the free, the country of the brave who had bounteous arms to welcome the downtrodden and abused of the world is no longer that place. Instead it’s the land of the secret police, tbe land of a pedophile traitor president who can’t stand any kind of criticism because he’s a fucking coward who dodged military service.
I’m just embarrassed as fuck
To the point of being furious…
There’s a huge difference between being ashamed of your Government’s actions and behavior and being ashamed of who you are/where you were born.
One is a valid criticism of the ruling class ignoring the people’s desire for peace and social responsibility. The other is a mental health issue much like some people who are ashamed of the race or gender they were born as.
I get attacked by people unable to separate this conflation because I encourage people resistant to our government to pick up the goddamn American flag and wave it. To have some measure of pride in the institution we live in so others take it seriously when we demand improvement.
There’s a huge difference between being ashamed of your Government’s actions
That’s not really “shame”, not really the right word for it, shame is something you feel about yourself, this is more like resentment.
I think it becomes shame because we recognize we’ve benefited from the system that has shit all over so many. Even indirectly, it’s hard to think about all the ways I’ve benefited from - just to say one thing - all the cheap open land (places like texas, nebraska, oklahoma, OR & WA) we got after putting the natives in concentration camps and murdering most of them.
Like, I try to enjoy a national park but then realize: this was someone’s home. Many peoples, in fact. We took it, put up gates, and charge people to harass the animals. And that’s the places we’ve saved from industrial pollution and factory farming.
I genuinely feel like a lot of people don’t think very much about their feelings or where they come from, and end up with really mixed-up or inconsistent values.
If you ask a lot of Americans why they feel the way they do about their country, negative or positive, they often become irritated or upset because most people just tie a lot of associations and emotions to other concepts and words. Which is fine, that’s how brains work. But I think if you’re involved in a democracy you should have some level of actual thought towards how you feel, what you want from your country and who should be representing those values. I can’t get people on either side of the political spectrum to care about any of that shit… which is why China will probably have the solar system in a generation.
China will probably have the solar system in a generation
OMG I just had a thought.
Remember what happened when Great Britain expanded and colonized stuff? 13 colonies?Independence?
OMG wouldn’t it be cool if China did that to like Mars, then the Martian colonists be like, “no fuck you CCP”, then:
Declaration of Independence
United Provinces of Mars
Constitution (hopefully a smarter constitution)
Martian Revolution
Becomes a Solar Superpower
Chinese becomes the lingua franca of the solar system.
Time is a circle lmao.
Literally just The Expanse timeline, but without blue goo and Chinese becomes the lingua franca of the UN. LOL
FOR MARS!
火星联合众国
Look, whatever you have to do to keep Elon out of the place, I am fully supportive.
Seriously though, I was watching a documentary on the International Space Station a few days ago and listening to how this major network was hyping up such a “huge American engineering challenge” and “doing the impossible as the world watched on” and I couldn’t help but grumble “China has made three stations in half the time and those are just practice for an actual series of much bigger projects.” Literally, America gets almost NO news on progress and achievements outside of the USA.
This is kind of the plot of Armored Core if you also made it a cyberpunk corporate dystopia.
Anyone who has been embarrassed by a family member knows.
I believe the shame stems from the moral injury we all suffer when we peacefully stand by in a democracy and let bad people control the government and inflict serious harm on innocents
So in some respect it is in fact all of our faults because we do in fact sit by and watch people die so we can respect the democratic process.
Because it collectively is our fault.
Speaking only for myself: because the American government has, for 250 years, claimed to act on behalf of the American people. When it was liberating concentration camps and sending people to the moon, that was something to be proud of.* When it was upholding slavery and winking at Jim Crow laws, it wasn’t.
It’s a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” and so he purports to speak and act on my behalf. That’s deeply embarrassing and shameful, even if I couldn’t have done anything differently to prevent it.
* (Yes, I know that even those “good” examples are complicated. I’m just forming an example here)
Well this last election really broke me from thinking of myself as an American. I just happen to live here.
Because the truth is our democracy is managed by oligarch propaganda. And our votes mean very little outside of local elections.
A vote for Trump and a vote for Harris were both going to continue the harms of the MIC and the fossil fuel industry. Yes, Trump is an accelerant. And I voted not to add gasoline.
But the fire was going to burn one way or the other.
Anyway, I think folks that feel ashamed still believe that their voice matters. Which is by design of the political and business class.
I feel similarly and to expand a bit its more the fact that second time around electing this fool proves that that majority of Americans are either horrible people or useful idiots which is incredibly depressing to know with certainty. For me, first time around was a fluke, second time is reality. I’m exploring citizenship elsewhere as a backup plan.
One word:
Tribalism.
It’s shaming to see people and institutions you were proud of and bragged about being the best, then devolve into something the rest of the world laughs at.
Because I look at my country and what it’s done and feel insufficient for my failure to keep it from doing stupid and evil things.
Also the European and Canadian frustration with America and Americans is understandable, but it has an impact especially when you still think highly of those places and their people.
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You have nuanced take on things. That’s a rarity here on lemmy. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a few of the lemmunists show up to tell you how your take on China is entirely wrong.
And speaking of nuance- the overwhelming lack of it here is pretty much the answer to your question.
Strangely, people seem to hate when blanket definitions are used to describe them, while also seeming to love using them as a weapon against others when under the Manufactured Outrage spell.
For instance, I too voted for Harris, and I’ve been called a gEnOciDe suPpOrTeR, a bOoTLiCkEr, and. bLuEmAga™. Just for voting against a fascist.
Looking for a nuanced take here is like looking for it in a gradeschool classroom. It’s best not to take any of it seriously.
For instance, I too voted for Harris, and I’ve been called a gEnOciDe suPpOrTeR, a bOoTLiCkEr, and. bLuEmAga™. Just for voting against a fascist.
The hatred between left leaning Lemmy users over the last election is crazy to me. Instead of focusing on getting rid of the current fascist regime together, so many just dogpile on anyone based on whether they voted for Harris. I feel like every other political post has a flame war that starts with a comment blaming the news on anyone and everyone on the left who didn’t vote Harris or criticized dems during the campaign.
There are those of us with a bit of nuance though. I was and still am disgusted and disappointed with the Dem’s positions and empathize with those who sat out in 2024 but I voted Dems them over the party looking to fast track fascism and white nationalism. I regularly get flamed for suggesting we move on from blaming each other and focus on getting rid of the fascists here and now.
Yeah I get why people have talked shit to you. It’s flat out not fuckign acceptable to have withheld a vote from harris to make some statement which will never be heard. What they did was see Hitler rising and said their little tantrum was more important than trying to stop him. But here you are trying to justify that when no one asked.
Thanks for the demonstration.
jIlL sTeIn 2028!!!1
If someone calls you bLuE mAgA then that probably just means you are smarter than them.
That’s how I take it as well.
It’s a sort of in-group cringe.
