I'm Afraid of Americans (Thank you, Bowie and Nine Inch Nails)

[bleedsdaylight]

I’m sitting in a meeting in Fruitland Park, Florida, (near Leesburg, which is significant to

But overall, I don’t think I can do meetings/conferences in the US anymore. It’s not that I don’t find a lot of the people (but not many of them) to be pleasant and considerate. It’s all the cultural assumptions in the language of the meetings that get me

Comments

[blindapprentice]

I hear ya....I'll never say "but at least you get a nice vacation in Florida" again! Don't worry, you'll make it back soon enough and return to friendly territory =)

[bleedsdaylight]

:-)

Thanks for the solidarity, brother!

And let's hang out some night... we can force Ken out too!

[pagerbear]

I'm afraid of Americans, too. Can I come live in your country?

[bleedsdaylight]

How could I possibly say no to you??

Come on over! I'll make cookies...

[jawnbc]

I've attended similar meetings around queer health, and what usually happens is the Canucks, Dutch, Kiwis and Scandanavians eventually go into their own corner. We're no longer fighting to prove we're: 1.) human; and 2.) discriminated against...and that's unacceptable. They're still fighting for those initial recognitions; we've moved on.

But when the American hegemony thing starts, I leap right in and ask: do those of us from elsewhere get an equal place here, or are we expected to kill time waiting for the odd scraps? So far no one's offered scraps...at least intentionally.

Oprahessive. Fab!

[bleedsdaylight]

Nice to hear it's not just the church that's all fucked up!

Thanks brother!

[ex_earthmonk411]

i found that a lot in the conferences i use to go down to the states for. they always knew there would a large amount of people there from Canada but nothing was there to even make us feel welcome. one year they put up welcome tables representing every state and one that said "other"....it's nice to know that i was one of the "others". there were like 10 Canadians that bothered to go over and one poor Japanese guy that didn't really speak much English. *flashes back to highschool*

ahhhh, but enough american bashing. you and i both know well enough that there are some great people down there (and now up here)...it's just when it gets all institutionalized that things some how get f#cked up.

[bleedsdaylight]

Absolutely... I've loved enough Americans to know that they are people who have to struggle with a hell of lot more than we do... but that's how I choose to engage them... as individuals.

[bleedsdaylight]

Ya man... you need to escape north for some sanity time sometime!

:-)

[bleedsdaylight]

strength to you in immigration struggles... I've dealt with lot of that crap this year...

And yes, I get to BC every chance I can! I'll be there at the end of February...