The United States upholds its status as the major global power through economic strength, technological innovation, military capabilities, and diplomatic influence.
As the leader of the free world, the country remains relevant to virtually everyone abroad, too. However, people's perception of it can vary dramatically, and due to factors such as media bias, political agenda, and historical context, misleading information can find its way into these talks as well.
#21
Mistake number 1: referring to America as a monolith. Virtually all of these comments are both true and false to varying degrees depending on the part of the country you’re in. The US is a f*****g massive country, and a lot of folks, especially Europeans don’t seem to get just how truly gargantuan it is. Their countries are more comparable to individual states than the US as a whole.
37points
#22
I live overseas and one of my Chinese friends always asks me about gun violence and how scary America must be.
I found out recently she's from Xinjiang, aka the place where Uighurs are being sent to concentration camps.
Report
37points
#23
Rural America is not all BS, guns and racism. Mostly we're all just getting by like everyone else, trying to be good people and want everyone to be nice.
Report
33points
#24
Americans being ignorant about foreign languages and monolingual. It’s a true stereotype, but not about Americans. It’s true to native English speakers- as UK & Australia have similar rates of monolingualism.
There are also many states in the United States where that just simply isn’t as true as they think it is, like LA county, southern Arizona, Texas, southern Florida etc.
Report
32points
#26
I’m not necessarily sick of hearing it, but when I went to Europe I had TWO separate people ask me why American men like fat girls so much. I said, “What do you mean?” They said, “I see pictures of American women and they’re all fat. So, your men must like that?”
I was so caught off guard I just laughed.
Report
29points
#27
How terrible it is - as told by people who’ve never been there or have never been anywhere else.
29points
#28
That we're all dumb. I had several men in England come up to me and tell me that, and surprisingly, later expect me to go home with them.
Report
26points
#29
That Americans aren't "well traveled" for having never been out of the country.
B***h, it is 2,791 miles from NYC to LA. It is 286 miles from London to Paris. It would take less than ,10 miles to travel from Portugal to Finland than crossing the entire Continental US. You can travel so far in the US without crossing the border, entering into multiple biomes/climates.
Just bc Americans may not leave the US doesn't mean they aren't well traveled, and that's excluding Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
Report
26points
#30
The US is one of the most racially and culturally tolerant nation. Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of issues, but we call it out, we're trying to change it. Almost every other nation in the world is a homogenous culture/genetic group dealing with immigration as if it's a novel concept that humans move, when humans have been moving for thousands of years. Further countries that have diverse native populations, there's the issue of erasing those cultural differences. China had like a dozen distinctrregional cultures like a century ago, and they're being homogenized. The US is not the only nation to genocide indigenous peoples.
Report
24points
