Anti-American-ism

So for the first time today I experience a true "I hate America" attitude in full effect. Now I've been around plenty of people that make jokes about it just to be silly but would never say anything offensive to our faces. But today in my Jim Crow history class, we were having a little debate in the seminar about the tactics of Booker T. Washington and W.D. and W.E.B. Du Bois during the post-reconstruction era of the south (around the 1870-ishs). I was the only American in the seminar that day (normally Kevin is in there, but he got to play in the Rugby game today!! YAY!) It was a pretty heavy debate, with most of the people in my seminar favoring Washington's tactics when one of the students went on a rampage about how he can't stand Americans and how they did this and how we treat immigrants and how we discriminate. His word choice was a lot more colorful than that brief sentence and had a very different tone then my words can express. 

I wouldn't express my self as one of those outrageous Americans that thinks the rest of the world is beneath us and wears red, white & blue on a daily basis, but it was quite offensive. Especially since I was participating in the debate and it is very obvious that I am from America. The girls around me just stared at me, not knowing what to say and I could tell they genuinely felt sorry for what had just happened. But at the same time, no one in the class stopped him from going on. The teacher wasn't even in shock from the words coming from his mouth. She then ended the debate and dismissed the rest of class. She did come up an apologize to me profoundly and told me she wasn't going to have anymore debates in the seminar because of what happened. 

Since the purpose of this blog is to give you all an idea of what it feels like to be here, I won't lie. I had to put a brave face on and tell her that it was alright and that I knew at some point in the class someone was going to remark like that. But it did take a stab at me. It was almost like being back in middle school and being bullied again, but this time it was just because of the country I came from. (Quite ironic actually, that he had all those nasty things to say about the American people - including myself - because of how bad the American looked upon the African Americans at that time, yet he was doing the same thing.)

I went to one of the other American's rooms and told her what happened and I received even more horrifying stories about how some people here treated the American students. She told me that one kid in her class won't let any Americans sit in the same row as him "because those seats aren't for those people." And another girl had a kid in her class ask about how many African Americans we kill now-a days. It was a big reality shock to hear all these stories and experience my own little bit of hatred.

But thankfully, most of the students here aren't like that and typically we don't have to experience anything like it. I knew it was bound to happen at some point here, so today was that day!