1. “If America Cared About This Sport, We’d Totally Dominate It”
It’s such a lazy and dismissive way to talk about sports that America doesn’t traditionally participate in. If Americans were able to dominate the sport, they would.
2. American-Sized Portions
The way Americans go abroad and say “Is that all we get? This is so small!” No, American portion sizes are too big.
3. All-Or-Nothing Politics
It’s either Republican or Democrat. If you’re anti-choice, then it’s automatically assumed you’re a gun nut. If you support government subsidized healthcare, it also means you want everybody to give all their earnings away to the poor. Why can’t there be a middle-ground?
4. Taking Credit For Winning The War
You guys joined World War Two a year before the end and take the credit for everything. By taking all the credit for winning the war, you’re ignoring all the hard work all the other countries put in over the previous five years.
5. Guns
The United Kingdom has had ONE school shooting in its history. Dunblane, 1996. After this, private gun ownership was banned. Since then, the U.K has had one mass shooting. Do you know how many the United States have had since 1996? 52.
6. Greatest Country In The World
This is a phrase that has been repeated over the years, and I just can’t get my brain around it. What makes the United States of America the greatest country in the world? Was there a “Greatest Country In The World” competition that I missed? How do you even measure whether a country is the greatest in the world?
7. Saying ‘In America You Can’t Do That’ When You’re Abroad
Well thank God we’re not in America then!
8. Chanting ‘USA USA USA!’
It’s genuinely the most bizarre thing. Not necessarily because it’s weird to spontaneously chant your country’s name, but it’s the random timing of it all. This chanting can suddenly start up at a sports event, in a bar or after an American movie has finished showing in a cinema.
9. Categorizing All Other Areas As ‘Europe,’ ‘Africa,’ or ‘Asia’
How hard is it to learn the names of the countries you’re traveling to? Europe and Africa are huge places: at least be specific when recounting the stories of where you’ve been to.
Featured image by Kevin Dooley, available under a Creative Commonns 2.0 Attribution-Sharealike license.