People are pretty caught up at approximately any given moment about some fucked up thing happening in the US/on behalf of the US government that people forget that we do, in fact, have a bunch of cultural/political things that are cool and good and rare/uniqe. Furthermore, lots of critiques of American culture are made by Europeans who are entirely too high on their own supply. My contrarianism is in full go mode right now so I'm going to chost about how The US Is Cool And Europeans Have No Right To Throw Stones, because I'm tired of Americans being doomers and I'm tired of Europeans being smug.
Our music rules and you can't fucking deny it. (And white americans, I swear to fucking god, if you were having some thought like "oh well that's mostly Black music, not Americans in general", please play that back in your head until you can internalize that Black Americans are Americans, and contribute to broader American culture. We're not some separate group)
i actually wanna get at this because i've seen it play out before online, where there's a certain type of leftism that has tightly committed itself to a unilateral distaste for everything american but at the same time recognizes that it's kind of racist to bring that distaste to black american culture. so instead the compromise they strike is "black americans aren't really american, they're their own thing that happens to be in america due to historical injustice."
and look: yeah, that second thing is true, but that doesn't change the fact that black americans are like. human beings with the same capabilities as anyone else. black folks are equally well-equipped to understand and grapple with whatever moral responsibilities american identity puts on their shoulders, the same as the rest of us. you are not doing them a favor by saying "well i hate your country's culture and national identity but you're a minority so you're one of the good ones," you're just condescending to them. trying to relieve a minority group of the moral responsibility you levy on the majority is dehumanizing act, not a progressive one!
i am generally of the opinion that much of what people say is a product of american culture has more to do with american politics and economics—that the worst of our imperial violence has less to do with the flag and the constitution and notions of freedom and more to do with our bottom line. i think that's supported by the fact that plenty of other countries are happy to deploy the same imperial tactics we do on smaller scales and in places most people are unfamiliar with. you are welcome to disagree; america is unique in many ways. but it is not your burden to carve out special exceptions for black americans when doing so. personhood, humanity, social existence—whatever name you use for it, we generally accept that to be in this world is to accept a certain level of moral responsibility. if responsibility for a nation's mistakes lie on its people, then denying black americans that responsibility denies them their humanity; it is the furthest thing in the world from respect.
