Ignorance, Vegemite, and Anti-Americanism

I wrote this in response to a particular thread in an Australian forum. The thread started out innocently enough, with someone being quite shocked that the United States has apparently banned the importation of Vegemite due to it being too high in folate. (No, it doesn't make sense to me, either, but that's beside the point.)

The thread very quickly turned into a highly insulting anti-American fest, including more than one member using the term "septic" to describe Americans. It's rhyming slang, as in Yank rhymes with tank, and on to septic tank. Nice, isn't it? Americans are sewage. (Now tell me that's not insulting.)

They also went on about George W. Bush and how Americans support the war in Iraq and started in on American television and McDonald's and even - believe it or not - peanut butter and jelly (jam) sandwiches, of all things! I mean, this bunch of morons (well, sorry, but they are) were taking personal affront to something the FDA did, something that most Americans wouldn't even know had happened, was happening, or, face it, what the hell Vegemite even is or why anyone would want to eat it. They were making some incredibly stupid and astoundingly ignorant comments on subjects about which they clearly knew NOTHING.

Anyway, that's the background. And this is what I wrote (very slightly edited), though I didn't actually post it there (seemed pretty pointless, really). I did want to preserve it though, so here it is...

However, I object strenuously to being called a "septic". Would the people who use that phrase call black people by the N word? Would they refer to women with the C word? It's insulting, simple as that. It's not "good natured", it's offensive, and it's meant to offend. That's the sort of mentality that was going on in that thread. (I'm guessing they'd only do it if they thought they wouldn't get caught out, which says even more about their character.)

And by the way, the fact that most Americans (and Europeans, and Asians, and South Americans, and Africans...) don't ever develop a taste for Vegemite is not, in fact, an insult to the character or patriotism of Australia. Vegemite is an acquired taste. Very few people who don't grow up eating it ever manage to like it. Vegemite and whether someone likes it or not should not define one's social and cultural identity. If you really feel the need to define yourself by a mass produced food item, you should sit down and have a serious thought about that...

As for George W. Bush, MOST Americans did NOT vote for him, and two-thirds of Americans do not support the war in Iraq. That means that 200million Americans are against the war (and disapprove of Bush, have you even seen his dismal approval ratings lately?!). That's ten times the number of people in Australia! (And it was Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, who, despite overwhelming numbers of Australians being against the war in Iraq, got Australia involved in the whole mess!)

The American television shows that Australians like to complain about are brought to Australia by AUSTRALIAN television networks, and Australians spend billions of dollars in places like KFC and McDonald's. If Aussies didn't watch the shows and didn't eat the food or buy the goods or whatever, then the companies would stop marketing
it here. It seems absurd to me to blame the U.S. when Australians are the ones consuming the stuff. Nobody's holding a gun to your head and making you eat at McDonald's or watch "Friends" or some other insipid import, are they?

American culture may well like to export itself to the world, but guess what? The rest of the world is buying....

Like I said, I'm not normally sensitive to this stuff. I figure if you're dumb enough to think that 300million people are all exactly alike, you deserve to be ignored, but that thread really seriously angered me, more for the absolute ignorance than anything else.

I can name a LOT of completely legitimate complaints about American culture and society. I have plenty of issues with a lot of things American, and that's a fact. I mean, come on, I voluntarily and happily moved away from there, yanno?

But you know what? The fact that there are, indeed, big, annoying, troubling issues with American culture doesn't excuse calling Americans "septics" (can you be just a LITTLE BIT more insulting?!) and making idiotic statements about a culture and people you obviously don't know anything about.

I have NO CLUE why too much folate is supposed to be a bad thing (the reason that the U.S. has stopped allowing the importation of Vegemite), but that doesn't make 300million people no better than sewage.

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