Foreigners might not get this post’s reason for existing, but with some people it really does feel like we’re supposed to rebuke everything we see on a day to day basis and sometimes everyone we see, or else we’re no better than Maga MacDougall who actively donates to AIPAC over here. Sometimes an exception is made for Black culture, but it’s usually a shallow one that unravels the minute they have to elaborate on their dislike for American culture. “Americans should be more cultured” is an okay criticism but a lot of people who say that aren’t satisfied unless we come to the conclusion that everything about our home is bad.

And I have never found an elaboration on “America has no culture” that wasn’t steeped in some combination of appeals to a pure and ideal past, ignorance of how migration shapes every culture, classism, and sometimes even racism. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a statue PFP if you say this.