Shame and Embarrassment

My whole life I've grown up loving my country and everything we stand for. I love the basic tenants of our government (even though it doesn't seem the separation between church and state is as clear as dear Mr. Jefferson wanted it to be) and I love the rights that I have as an American. I love my friends and family and how we have the freedom to be together and do what we wish.

There have been instances though, which I have been made painfully aware of while here, where I am truly embarrassed to be associated with other Americans. Embarrassment because I can see, clearer than ever, how rude, insensitive, and coarse some Americans are. What citizen of another nationality would sit in a Swedish cafe and lambast the country's love of its royal family and sneer at the pride they take in the crown princess's wedding?

I could have died.

We are crude. We are loud. Our sense of humor tends towards vulgarity and female abuse. And what about respect? Would you not think that with the country being founded by the prudes of European society we would have developed a culture that centers around respect? Apparently not.

What makes this worse, is that these two individuals who so insensitively criticized the royal family are both Cornell students. One, in particular, succeeded in being so loud and rude about his opinions that our group (three Americans including myself, two Austrians, a Hungarian, a Kiwi, and a Frenchwoman) earned the dirty looks of the Swedes sitting at neighboring tables.

I was so irritated that after I checked his outburst, I couldn't concentrate on studying any longer and sat next to my Austrian friend trying to explain the factor of relatedness in bees to her. I believe the other American caught my death stares at the excessively rude individual and was more subdued for it. My Austrian friend, Isolde, could very well tell that I was bothered too.

Biking back from the library and talking to her just now, I felt profound relief as I heard her explain that although there were individuals in our group who fit the American stereotype, I was most certainly not one of them. But the anger and disappointment I felt was so crushing, that the depression still has not lifted. What to do?

The pressure I felt coming here as an American to show the best image of our country that I could was relieved little by little as I made more and more foreign friends (especially with Swedes). And now after this shocking incident, the pressure has descended once again and made me realize that no matter how much one works to change a world view, there will always be twice the number to reverse it again.