I'm going to tell you a story. One day, while working at my former place of employment, a client came in, and her name was African. I don't know which tribe it originated from, I'm not that learned, but I know it was very African. It was like Mbizi Chukwumereije (yes I had to Google 'African Surnames'). Amazingly, it happened to be alphabetically next to another one of our clients from the same background, because her file was right next to "Mbizu Chukwemare." (Obviously, I don't remember the names, but you get the point, right? Two very ethnic names of African origin filed next to each other alphabetically.)
My coworker grabbed the second file, not the correct one, and handed it to me. When the client did not remember anything listed in her file, I double-checked her date of birth, realized I had the wrong chart, went out and grabbed the correct one, and kindly explained to her what happened. No big deal, right?
WRONG. She was SO OFFENDED. She said (in a thick accent, might I add), "How could you mistake the two? Obviously they are two different names."
I bit my tongue. In retrospect, what I should have said was, "To you, yes, having had cultural exposure to that region of the world. But I am not so familiar with your name, and therefore I make mistakes. Kind of like last week, when you called me Kristin, which is actually the name of another employee."
(I have no idea if she ever actually called me Kristin. But it happened all the time, I still get Christina, Christine, Kristin, Krissy, and there was one lady from a previous workplace, legally retarded and from inner city Baltimore, who gave up on remembering my name and very fondly referred to me as "China," lol. It happens.)
People from other countries get offended. But had I said the same thing to her, that would have been insensitive to her culture. That would have been culturally ignorant. But yet, she can get away with being offended, but I can't?
Fast forward to a bigger scale. Americans can say "I hate Americans, they're so lazy. They're so rude. They're so ignorant. They're so dumb." Which I mean, I've said it, too, in some (many) frustrated moments. Today I read a very well-done piece about how Americans (okay, it was from The Guardian, and about rich white Western people in general, but I immediately thought of my own countrymen) are unknowingly perpetuating the poverty cycle of poor nations by this new "volun-tourism" fad. (Google it, it's absolutely true. Ugh, rich people strike again.)
Don't misread my point, critique is fine; or else, we would never get better!
The problem comes, if I follow that sentence with, "And don't get me started on Southeast Asians. What kind of person could exploit orphaned children for their own profit?" or "And Africans! Warlord politicians are living off of the wealth of starving families!" or "South America, come on, just get a legitimate government together already."
I would get punched, or worse. I would punch myself, really.
The problem is generalizing. We're all guilty of it. There are smart people everywhere, up against a cruel history. However, we give the victims the benefit of the doubt; as we should, because colonialism left a pretty nasty history. But while Americans might be getting fat and turning their children into diabetic video-gaming snotnosed brats, we were a people exposed to a consumer-driven culture and overabundance that we just weren't prepared for. And also, there are many Americans out there just trying to do something for the rest of the world, while they--as individuals--have no connection or blame for the plight of developing nations.
But to make it one-sided, to sit there and ridicule America while word-coddling the rest of the world, unknowingly (like those stupid volun-tourists) people are saying, "I expect Americans to be smarter, to have the capabilities to overcome their problems. I don't expect it from the rest of the world; it's not their fault they can't deal with it."
Everyone has problems. Some are bigger than others. Some are more domestically-imposed than others. But everyone has them, from generations before ours. Either get mad at everyone equally, or acknowledge everyone's difficulties and show compassions equally.
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