The Crass, Hypocritical American? Essay, Research Paper

Each year, deluging masses of populace from foreign nations flock to America. Here, they believe they will receive the chance to embrace, savor, and exercise true “Freedom”. Surely, this land of wondrous opportunities would encompass them in her fruitful prosperity! But is it really a land liberated from the fetters of suppression? Are Americans as tolerant and pleasantly liberal as perceived to be? If not, then a formidable and hefty query arises: What is an American?

A liberated America’s building blocks are the elixirs of Equality, Freedom, and democracy. What, then, would undermine the basic structures of America more than racism? Yet, try as we might, we cannot utterly annihilate the lurking plague of racism. It persistently resurfaces and hoists up its sordid visage. It is enough to make one contemplate upon the apparently indubitable democratic core of the Americans comprising of this “enlightened” democratic nation. Some Americans, however, do at least occasionally try to conceal biases through thinly gilded veneers of false enthusiasm. This, of course, is not to say that all Americans exhibit partialities- merely that those who do demonstrate a high capacity for concealment.

On a more comical note, Americans are stereotypically depicted as obnoxiously crass and stentorian by the “cultured” European countries such as the wine- drinking French. Americans may appear to seem “loud” when advocating causes and obligations thought to be ethically seemly. We become active and operative when championing for a motive. But often, Americans are vocal in general, and quite argumentative in nature. Americans, raised with society’s supposedly intense notions of Freedom, Liberty, and Justice abstractly as fundamental standards for sustenance, will not stand for a silencing of their sentiments and expressions. Americans are renowned for their outspoken, articulate, and often “too- liberal” mannerism. It is also stated that we are “brassy”, insensitive to the emotions of others, and ill- mannered, paragoned to the “polished disposition” of the “refined” Europeans. These are accusations Americans are “fondly” assailed with, though there just may be a rudiment of veracity to them……

Americans, in a sense, are sound depictions of humanity. We try to demonstrate to the rest of mankind that we are broad- minded and progressive, tolerant and encouraged. Yet, our flaws, and accordingly, the blemishes of humanity, are exposed in full bloom. As with all matters, Americans are in and of themselves “oxymoronic”, unveiling both the agreeable and iniquitous facets of humankind.