[dear-usamericans]

dear non-USamericans

have you ever wanted to tell USamericans something, wanted to vent about them, were annoyed by something they seem to constantly do on the internet?

you can vent here

in the form of

dear USamericans, [your text goes here] sincerely, the rest of the world [more specific if you want to]

you can vent about them without having to get notifications from them completely misunderstanding what you were saying and/or trying to argue with you

(if you wish to address non-USamericans please put it in the title like on this post)

[dear-usamericans]

dear USAmericans,

if you are in an international space, such as the internet, and someone says they are chinese, even if they say it in english*, they very likely mean they are a chinese person living in china, and they likely don't mean they are a chinese person living in the u.s. or a USAmerican with chinese roots

(this applies to any nationality you can think of, chinese is just an example here)

unless they specifically mention living in the u.s., your first assumption should not be that they do, as most people in the world do not live in the u.s. (including most english speakers*)

this is also why people from other countries sometimes get irritated by USAmericans saying they're e.g. italian when they haven't been to italy and don't know a lot about italian culture. the first assumption they have about someone saying they're italian is that this person is from and likely still living in italy, so if that person then doesn't know the first thing about italy, people get confused

it is common courtesy to refer to your roots differently than to the culture you grew up in

for example a person who grew up in germany with parents from poland might say their parents are polish but they grew up in germany (and so they're german or polish-german because that's the culture they lived and learned)

or someone whose family fled germany a hundred years ago, but has been living in the uk ever since might mention that their surname is originally german as their ancestors were, but they're entirely british as their family hasn't left the uk in a hundred years

or someone who moved from tunesia to germany only a few months ago might say they're tunesian but living in germany

none of them would say just their roots in an international context because they'd erase or hide their actual lived culture(**) and where they live now, which is all part of them, for some more than their ancestors!

so please, dear USAmericans, if you see someone say they're polish, don't immediately assume they're a polish person living in the u.s., and if you have polish roots, don't just say you're polish in an international context without mentioning you're also a USAmerican

sincerely,

the rest of the world

(*) did you know over 70% of english speakers are not USAmerican? link to a post discussing this

(**) if you are a USAmerican and you believe you have no culture, read this post. tl;dr: you have culture, you just misunderstand what the word culture means and believe yourself the default and culture the "other"

if you are USAmerican and you're confused about the word USAmerican, here's a post where i explain why i use this word

[dear-usamericans]

dear USAmericans,

i'm going to explain why i choose to say the word “USAmerican”

america is a continent (or two, depending on which system of continents you learned, there's typically 5 to 7 continents people learn). the word “american” refers to anyone from the continent(s) america, so if i address “americans”, i address people from the u.s., people from brazil, people from mexico, people from puerto rico, etc. anyone from any country on the entire continent(s)

but in most posts here, i don't want to address everyone on your entire continent, i want to address people from your country specifically, so i say USAmericans because the word has your country in it, so anyone should recognize who is being addressed, and it also has “american” in it, which is the word a lot of you want to use for yourself, so you'll feel addressed because it has your word for yourself in it

why don't i just use “american” and everybody knows i mean? because plenty people from america, but not the u.s., have expressed that they dislike the word being used to mean only USAmericans and not everyone from the entire continent(s)

to compare: i am european. i am from the continent europe. but if i wish to address specific europeans, i won't just say 'europeans', i'll say 'french people' or whoever i wish to address. if i wish to address specific americans, i'll say 'USAmericans' or whoever i wish to address

why don't i use “yanks” or whatever other slang or uncommon word you came up with two seconds ago? because if you speak to a lot of non-native speakers (for example non-USAmericans reading this or wanting to submit posts), you shouldn't use slang a lot. also, i want everyone to be able to understand what i mean. if someone doesn't know the word “yank” or knows it as something else, there'll be more misunderstandings than necessary. if someone doesn't know the word “USAmerican” and they can read(*), they can parse who it refers to, plus it's easy to pronounce even if unfamiliar, as it's just “USA” and “American” together (this is also why i format it as “USAmerican”, it shows the word USA clearly and helps parse and pronounce it hopefully!)

so in short, i use the word USAmerican because it is easy to understand and parse, both for native speakers and non-native speakers of english, and it clarifies exactly which country's people i wish to address, unlike the word “american” which addresses an entire continent (or two)

sincerely,

the mod lol

(*) i'm not saying this as a jab at your literacy rates, i'm saying this because i've genuinely had a USAmerican derail a conversation entirely by throwing a massive fit about this one word because he couldn't read it. like he kept saying how he doesn't even know how it's pronounced and what “oosam erica” is supposed to be, i wish i was joking. this is also why i put the pronunciation there.

[dear-usamericans]

Dear USamericans,

Please stop making posts about laws and politics without stating they're specifically about the US.

Whilst those posts are informative and a very good resource for other USamericans, leaving them blank makes the reader assume its universally applicable for once until you read through and realise it was just about the US all along with no prior indication.

For example, there's not much use I'll be able to get about voting for the Democratic or Republican parties when I live in Australia.

Just, please, try to remember that the US isn't the default.

Sincerely,

the rest of the world

if they just remembered that the internet is an international place and added the relevant info of where they're talking about, it would already help a lot

[dear-usamericans]

Dear US Americans,

please understand that a film about a historical event usually presents a heavily edited and dramatised/sometimes sanitised version of the event, and that there are facts about the people involved in it that you a) haven't heard of, b) will shatter the image you've built up in your mind.

Also: please stop equating cultures in other countries with what you've learned from shitty Hollywood movies and musical theatre.

Sincerely, an annoyed Austrian who's had it with the Sound of Music.

.

[hoardingpuffin]

IF YOU ARE A US BASED QUEER PERSON, PLEASE READ THIS.

Stop being so ignorant. Seriously.

And by that I mean: Get it in your head that there is more queer history our there than the one in the US. There is more than Stonewall.

You ever heard of LGSM?!

You ever heard of Magnus Hirschfeld?

You ever heard of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs?

Jesus fjucking Christ, US-centrism already is a plague on the world but if one more US-based queer person lectures me for "not knowing queer history" I will lose it I KNOW YOUR COUNTRY'S QUEER HISTORY BETTER THAN THE ONE OF MY OWN COUNTRY BECAUSE IT IS FUCKING OMNI-PRESENT!!!!

My country has a blooming queer history. Pre-1930s and pre-nazis, the Weimarian Republic was incredibly queer friendly for its time, with blooming queer subcultures, especially transfriendly subcultures. It was probably the most progressive in Europe for its time, and that is despite the laws against "out-of-norm behaviours". Then, starting 1919, Magnus Hirschfeld's institute for sexual research [Sexualwissenschaften] became a safe space for queer people as Hirschfeld was strongly advocating for the decriminalization of homosexuality, and whilst his research is not up to our modern times by any stretch, he was instrumental in queer movements in Germany. Berlin in the 1920s was a bustling queer space, probably with the strongest openly queer culture in all of Germany at the time.

1960s! Germany is split in two, and in '68 and '69 respectively, both Germanys decriminalize homosexuality! The DDR literally legalized homosexuality a year before the Stonewall riots! But do US-based queer people know about this? Nope! Do they still expect every queer person from around the globe to know US queer history? Yes!

And the thing is - I don't care it US queer people know about Magnus Hirschfeld, even though his institute was one of the first to ever offer gender-affirming surgeries [Dora Richter]. What I do care about it the ignorance. US folks are taught that the US is the centre of everybody's world, but for fucks sake, you've got the Internet! You are able to learn!

When in Germany, there were protests for queer rights and against our ever-steadily right-leaning politics as well as pro-Palestine protests, US folks commented under tiktoks of these marches genuinely believing these were solidarity protests for the US.

When European people in general try to talk about queer rights movements in out countries, US folks always need to tell us either that we are behind the times because "oh my god, that's been legal for years" or they will tell people from less progressive countries that their big, huge steps forward in queer equality mean nothing just because the US did that step before.

US based folks to not realize, nor seemingly care to realize, how big of a deal it is that JKR is a transphobic piece of shit and that, when UK-based people say "hey, stop interacting with the Harry Potter IP in any way, yes that includes cosplay and fanfics" they don't say this just because JKR is transphobic. They say it because JKR actively is a massive part in the many anti-trans laws in the UK. Her social influence - and if you cosplay HP in 2025 or read and write fanfic or post little silly Maurauders edits, you are giving her that social influencial power - allows her to make the lives of queer and especially trans people in the US living hell. Not just her money, her influence. So when UK based folks say "hey, stop engaging with HP" they are actually saying "hey, stop engaging with the IP of the woman who wants to make our very existence illegal! You are helping her do that!"

Germany wants to bring back the Pink Lists. You even know what those are, US-queers? They were lists keeping track of queer people. Lists that the nazis used to kill us off. Germany's government wants to bring those back. That is also queer history, actively being written as we speak.

I can understand an amount of ignorance. I can understand that with everything going on, it's hard to keep track. But maybe get your heads out of your arses and understand that there are more queer histories than yours. Queer rights and Pride is not just Stonewall. I don't have to have read Stone Butch Blues to be a real lesbian. I don't need to know who Marsha was, if you don't need to know who Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was.

Learn. Listen.

Stop cosplaying Harry Potter, or Maurauders, you are literally working against your fellow trans people if you engage with the IP. Just because you don't feel that in the US doesn't mean it isn't happening elsewhere.

Start to think. Don't assume that your country's history is the only one with a valid queer history. And that is just me speaking as a German, from the German/West European perspective. It's not even touching on queer liberation movements on Eastern Europe, or the Asian and Africam countries, and I am not qualified to speak on those and even with research I'd rather you'd listen to queer people from those countries.

Just. Start working against your own ignorance. And start to listen to your fellow queer people around the globe.

[dear-usamericans]

and i immediately somehow lost a submission that i made ready to post

i saved an answered ask as draft to look something up and now it's neither in the askbox nor in the drafts

i'm going to reblog a post that talks about the same topic (which i was going to do anyway because it fit the ask), but i'm sorry for straight-up losing the submission, anon

[dear-usamericans]

dear non-USAmericans

hi, i'm a new mod taking over the blog, since the old mods aren't really doing anything with it anymore

i'm from germany, speak german and english fluently and accept submissions in german and english (i can translate if you want me to), and i would love more mods for this blog

if anyone is interested, shoot me a message!

[dear-usamericans]

Dear USAmericans,

Shut up about British accents and Celtic languages. It's free. You don't know what you're talking about.

Working class, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish accents are constantly degraded in our media. The "BBC News presenter" voice your used to is called Recieved Pronounciation (RP) English. It is the accent that is deemed smart and proper. The further you deviate from it, the worse you're viewed.

Making fun of people who drop h's and t's from their speech upholds this status quo. One were non RP accents are discriminated against. It's called accentism.

Celtic languages do not need your mockery after hundreds of years of suppression. I will never speak what should be my native language, Gaeilge (Irish), fluently. British colonialism took that from me, and now you mock people for reclaiming and reviving Irish 'cause the spellings don't make sense to you? I'm not tolerating it.

Saoirse (seer-shuh) is an Irish name. "aoi" is pronounced "ee" in Irish. E's at the end of words make an uh sound. S's are pronounced as a "sh" sound if they're followed by an e or an i. It makes sense.

Shut up about the Welsh town, Llanfairpwll. Welsh is a language that makes far more sense pronounciation wise than English. You don't need to understand it, just respect it. The reason the town name is so long is it was a publicity stunt. Look up the translation, it makes sense.

You think you're being counter culture by mocking the Brits, but you're upholding the Tory status quo. You can't be counter culture if you don't know what the culture is.

[dear-usamericans]

And to the english bloke that sent in an annoyed ask complaining about presumably welsh having 'too many letters'

You're not wanted here you nationalist prick. English makes no sense you can't fucking talk

Kindly(/s) an english person that doesnt have her head up the tories arses

[eroticcannibal]

It is taking years of deliberately effort for me to be able to speak in the way I'm supposed to speak. When accents are so tied up in identity, not just class identity but regional identity (down to the fucking Street sometimes), your place in time and your family and community's history, to lose your way of speaking due to accentism (and racism, given how regional and lower class accents and dialects get mixed with the native languages of immigrants) can be devastating.

I overheard my child once being "corrected" on their regional speech, and in that moment I truly felt all the trauma that I'd pushed down from being denied the ability for my speech to reflect my identity. I realised that the way I was speaking was only teaching me to view my life, where I had grown up, the history of my family, with shame. And I was not willing to teach my child to hide themself. I was not going to teach them that who they are is shameful. So I committed to not speaking "properly" again.

And its hard. Its really fucking hard. It is an incredibly emotional process, and it is one that opens me up to an incredible amount of discrimination. I have had to perfect switching to a degree I never had before, lest my speech be used as evidence of me being an unfit parent or a drug seeker rather than disabled (yes, this does happen. Still happens). I had to abandon all English teaching materials while educating my child when it became apparent to me just how much the national curriculum actively suppresses regional accents and dialects. We cannot use any voice related technology, which means we miss out on disability aids we desperately need. I still struggle with language learning resources, because no matter how much I modified my speech, I never did quite speak the queen's English, and this English they use in books and in apps is a language I do not speak. (I could barely learn at all back when duolingo used hearts because my perfectly grammatically correct translations where not the expected form of english)

And thats not even touching on how I have zero connection to my Welsh heritage. There is a whole part of me, a whole part of my family that I do not understand. That I cannot talk to in what should be *our* language. A language that is beautiful and deserving of being spoken, by the way. Fuck off with that "its unpronounceable " shit and go look up how to fucking pronounce it. It aint fucking English. Stop treating it like fucked up English.

(And this one is just kinda petty, but it is irritating how I am expected to translate for a USAmerican audience, but they never do for anyone else)

Being cut off from your identity is traumatic. Oppression on the basis of your identity is traumatic. And for USAmericans to mock that trauma is beyond cruel.

[leftist-ideas-n-resources]

Summary: Making fun of people’s accents is bad. Making fun of their language is bad. Especially in the case where there is historical precedence of there being attempts by the state and higher ups to erase or degrade said accent or language.

TLDR: USAmericans should “shut up about British accents and Celtic languages”

[undeadcorvid]

You can't be counter-culture if you don't know what the culture is.

[brendambois]

These are all valid points, but I just feel like I need to say that not all Americans are like that. Some of us are, but not all of us.

[dear-usamericans]

breaking my break of this blog to say:

you do realize you just "not all men"ed us?

on a post where people were talking about their own experiences?

where not a single person even implied, let alone said, that they mean every single USamerican?

(if i need to clarify my point here, feel free to reach out! /gen)

[bloodlinemagick]

its so difficult to explain the absolute dread and fear to Americans about the Queen dying because they leap immediately to jokes and memes or rolling their eyes and asking if you're a royalist.

babes....they've planned a national MONTH of mourning for when she dies. all programming shifted to mourning the Queen, and god knows it'll be tory brainwashing.

a funeral costs around 12 million for a prince!! how much is it going to be for a Queen!! a new coronation's price???

the things this black hearted government will cut, or shove through parliament, under the guise of mourning?? the martyring???

energy bills are predicted to rise to £7700 ($8800) a year, do you understand how this can be twisted? inflation to 24%? they're already using the war in Ukraine as an excuse, but this??? gold mine for them.

I'm not saying don't make your jokes, but PLEASE understand if a British person seems horrified and shell shocked because We Know What Comes Next but even then, not under such a fascist and authoritarian government in such a poverty inducing time.

[dear-usamericans]

I Should Be Able to Mute America

The rest of the world should not have to know the name Bari Weiss

I'm neither USAmerican or Aussie, but yeah I found this Australian post talking about the former. Thought you might be interested

(note by mod: i saw the title and instantly went true, might reblog this with a 'dear usamericans' style letter

also read this entire article, it's good)

[dear-usamericans]

[ID: a screenshot of a tweet from twitter. it's a reply to another tweet that says “30k likes for “Frida Kahlo was white”. one brain cell between them all”. the reply reads “this and the anne frank had white privilege just shows usamericans shouldn't speak of race when it comes to stories outside the usa”. End ID.]

(note by mod: sorry, i looked up frida kahlo and whomst the fuck said

[ID: a photo frida kahlo. she is a mexican woman. End ID.]

this person is white?

also, as a german, don't even get me started on the anne frank is white bullshit.)

[dear-usamericans]

anon wanted to add the following too:

[ID: another screenshot of a tweet. it reads: “Frida Kahlo being canceled for exploring her ethnic heritage and Anne Frank being canceled for having "white privilege" tells me all I need to know about the American education system.” End ID.]

[dear-usamericans]

another anon wanted to add this:

[ID: a screenshot of a tweet from twitter. it reads “"anne frank had white privilege" i am begging other americans to learn literally anything about the construct of race”. End ID.]

(note by mod: same mate)

(i also saw this in the replies to this:)

[ID: a screenshot of another tweet. it's in reply to a tweet that reads: “hold on I want to make sure I say this carefully [a free line] yeah Anne Frank had white privilege. bad things happen to people with white privilege also but don't tell the whites that”. the reply to it reads: “i don't know when we will be free of this insufferable discourse but i guess it will last until we actually start teaching real history here (so never)”. End ID.]

[dear-usamericans]

[ID: a screenshot of a tweet from twitter. it's a reply to another tweet that says “30k likes for “Frida Kahlo was white”. one brain cell between them all”. the reply reads “this and the anne frank had white privilege just shows usamericans shouldn't speak of race when it comes to stories outside the usa”. End ID.]

(note by mod: sorry, i looked up frida kahlo and whomst the fuck said

[ID: a photo frida kahlo. she is a mexican woman. End ID.]

this person is white?

also, as a german, don't even get me started on the anne frank is white bullshit.)

[dear-usamericans]

anon wanted to add the following too:

[ID: another screenshot of a tweet. it reads: “Frida Kahlo being canceled for exploring her ethnic heritage and Anne Frank being canceled for having "white privilege" tells me all I need to know about the American education system.” End ID.]

[dear-usamericans]

[ID: a screenshot of a tweet from twitter. it's a reply to another tweet that says “30k likes for “Frida Kahlo was white”. one brain cell between them all”. the reply reads “this and the anne frank had white privilege just shows usamericans shouldn't speak of race when it comes to stories outside the usa”. End ID.]

(note by mod: sorry, i looked up frida kahlo and whomst the fuck said

[ID: a photo frida kahlo. she is a mexican woman. End ID.]

this person is white?

also, as a german, don't even get me started on the anne frank is white bullshit.)

[dear-usamericans]

dear USamericans,

i see and appreciate those of you that do change your vocabulary and the way you speak, that do make an effort, and say for example “in the southern USA” instead of just “in the south”

some of you really can do better.

thank you.

sincerely

a european

[hedgehog-moss]

have you considered that perhaps people from the us/canada assume you are one of them because your posts are written in english that is indistinguishable from that of a native english speaker from the us/canada

I'm going to unionise with all non-native English speakers on tumblr and we're going to start writing our posts with heavy cartoonish German or Russian or Portuguese or French accents and you will regret this message so much

[chaotic-carnifex]

Non-Native English Speakers, just vibing: "Isn't it nice that even when we don't speak each other's first language, we can still talk to each other using English?"

USAmericans, bursting through the door: "OUR US-CENTRIC ASSUMPTION THAT EVERYONE IS FROM THE USA AND EVERY POST IS ABOUT US IS YOUR OWN FAULT ACTUALLY tho ig you may be Canadian maybe"

Other Anglophones, from the corner of the room: "... at least they remembered Canada exists?"

[dear-usamericans]

friendly reminder that there's 1.2 billion english speakers in the world and that we non-native english speakers make up over 70% of those

[diplododocus]

For a country without an official language y'all are really fucking willing to impose "your language" on everyone else huh

Usamericans stop reinventing geocentrism around your bellybutton challenge

[hedgehog-moss]

have you considered that perhaps people from the us/canada assume you are one of them because your posts are written in english that is indistinguishable from that of a native english speaker from the us/canada

I'm going to unionise with all non-native English speakers on tumblr and we're going to start writing our posts with heavy cartoonish German or Russian or Portuguese or French accents and you will regret this message so much

[they-who-wander]

But senn evryone will sink I'm se evil villan if I hav a German axent!