Is it normal i sometimes feel ashamed to be an american?

This is going to be a long post so stay with me on this.

You have to be relative when it comes to history. Yes slavery was wrong but this was pre industrial times. Before the industrial revolution you didnt have the advantage of machining and fabricating large quantities of goods without the need for a large workforce. Slavery was the most efficent way to solve this problem, slavery was mostly normal throughout the world. As soon as the industrial revolution came around slavery would be too expensive to keep up and slavery would fall hard into disfavor for economic reasons not only the moral push to ban slavery. The racial divide that came for 100 years afterward was due to slowly humanizing the slave class. To own a slave you had to convince yourself that your slaves weren't actually people more of a really intelligent animal.

The native Americans of the America's were screwed from the start when they came to America 5000 + years ago. America lacked large domesticatable animals such as oxen that allowed Europeans and asians to plow feilds much more efficiently by hand allowing farming to be a staple in life. Hunting and gathering was much more viable in north america while in south america slavery once again solved the problem of food production. The natives also didnt have the benefit of being near live animals thier entire lives bringing resistances to animal diseases. The Europeans lost a third of thier population to the black plague that was given to them by the mongols during thier grand conquest. Europeans with their trading with around the known world also granted them an extreme resistance to diseases such as small pox (yes it was a problem but not as bad as the native Americans) that's the reason why there wasnt some American only plague that killed off all the Europeans that landed. Europeans just had better resistances. Ironically enough this was also the reason why the african slave trade became such a popular source. There wasnt a good supply of native Americans to have a decent slave source unlike the African supply.

The internment camps of ww2 was a good show of what paranoia comes from conflict in such racially diverse country like America. While it was a disagreeable concept now the internment camps served as both a defence from Japanese spies and the protection of the Japanese citizens away from the highly paranoid populace losing thier sons in the Pacific theater.

All around no country can say they are truly pure. Since we humans are flawed due to our both extreme logic and our ability to not care about our fellow man. America is an oddity in the world. A centralized country that is inhabited by all races on the planet mostly without conflict. I do truly believe America may not be the perfect country but is by far the most perfect country history has ever currently manufactured.

Lecture over, thanks for reading.

Hm. I spent about 5 years in America, mainly Alaska, working with a buddy who exported salmon back home to Russia.
I thought America was a very confusing country, everyone was incredibly different, but all obsessed over trying to find common ground.
But you shouldn’t be ashamed to be American, you’re big, you’re powerful, you’re wealthy, and you’re loud. It’s just how you are.
I’ve lived in Mongolia and China as well, also spending time in North Korea and Bhutan, but Russia is my home country. While I favor Russia, I think Americans are a-okay, and I love the people and city of Boston!

I’m not ashamed but I’m also not racist. I don’t personally see America as some racist land or make it up what the past was like. Every place has flaws. Just some are real fucking stupid like those listed.

Only be proud for of things you have personally achieved. I had nothing to do with being born English, it's just a fact. When I think of America I think of freedom, national pride and diversity. The way American's conducted themselves after 9/11 made me realise that it is 'home of the free and land of the brave'. I love you enthusiasm and drive. You fought for us without knowing us. I salute you.

You are basically saying that America has a past to be ashamed of. I suppose I agree. We did some really bad things to get where we are.

And so did every country that ever acquired any power or influence in the world. We all know about Germany causing two world wars and north Korean concentration camps but did you know that Belgium committed the genocide of possibly as many as 3 million Africans in the Congo? Ever heard of the Cambodian killing fields? Rwandan genocide? I have a friend who is an immigrant from Rwanda whose mother, father and sister were killed with machetes while he and his brother hid in a dried up well.

I can go on to talk about the ongoing firing squads in china or how north Korean defectors to the south are treated poorly by rok citizens. Or maybe how Canada currently keeps its lucrative asbestos mining operations in full swing by selling the cancer causing stuff to third world countries. It's TRUE. Google it.

For some reason however, it's the usa and only the usa who is judged for its past. I've heard british citizens condemn the us for slavery when they seem to forget that they are the ones who sold them to us.

It seems to me that we will never pay our debt to society. The Turkish had one if the most powerful empires in history and used very inhumane tactics and policies to reach such a height. Is anyone asking turkey to feel ashamed for its former crimes? No, I've never heard anyone suggest this. But Americans should be ashamed.

I wonder.. if america were to pay for the crimes of the past, would it not be expected by the world to humble itself to complete negation?

Basically what I'm saying is why are we the only ones expected to feel shame when we did no worse than what many other countries have done?

I think it's shameful that your government would rather pump billions of dollars into useless wars, space programs, and political campaigns than give its citizens free health care.

I think it's normal for you to feel ashamed in the sense that I think a lot of Americans do, but that doesn't mean that you should. Every country has it's good and bad bits, and it's not as if you personally are responsible for any of the big stuff. You can't help where you were born.

I feel like America is the most advanced country in most if not all fields. So no, I don't think you're right to be ashamed, all countries have a shady past.

If you don't like being American then I don't think you'd like being from anywhere else, it's probably the best place to be born in the entire world but of course, it doesn't mean it's perfect.

Be happy to be American because it's better than being Brazilian.

I get what your saying but I don't care. I don't see it as my issue what our country has done in the past. I'm my own man who happened to be born here and prefer not to think about such things. What can you really acomplish by thinking about this? Are you gonna leave just because of what we did in WWII or what?

Please feel free to pack and leave at anytime...I here Somalia is nice this time of year.

When your country is represented by people like trump and is considered to have people whose knowledge is lacking then yes. However it means nothing to who you are. The country you were born in doesn't define you as a person.

You didn't do any of that stuff. Be proud/ashamed for the stuff you've done, not for what other people who were born in the same piece of land have done.

Americans generally seem to think that they live in the best country on earth but there is so much about it that is fucked up and from the outside people are thinking thank god I dont live there. Theyre brainwashed since birth to be flag waving jingoistic minions. There are so many better countries to live.

On the whole America isn't that bad compared to other countries. However it holds itself to a higher standard. It used to be the country that other countries aspired to be. I think that has drastically fallen.

MERICA

Those the current president have anything to do with these feelings?.

Go to Europe. It's better.