The USA does seem to get far more criticism than other countries here and it irritates me too. The one thing I will say is that there's a difference between Germany and many other countries in that it accepts it's past. So much so that schools don't just teach about the the Holocaust and the causes but actually take older children to former concentration camps. Places like the UK, US and others are in denial.

Tams21: The US absolutely has a terrible history with regard to this issue, no doubt. It's unfair to say the US is in denial about it, however. A nation in denial doesn't make positive strides forward to try and prevent the same egregious mistakes, and our nation has done that. Having said that, however, I really wish we'd be much further along than we are now. We still have much work to do.

Denial was perhaps the wrong choice of words. At the same time, I'm not convinced the US has as a whole moved on. Slavery is still (depending on the definition) an issue in the form of forced labor in prisons and the treatment of native Americans still isn't (to my knowledge) fully addressed in schools. The same can be said of colonialism in the UK and the treatment of aborigines in Australia (to name a couple of examples) so the US is definitely not alone. I also don't see Germany as a positive example, they're merely treating their past with honesty to teach future generations - this should be normal.

Totally agree. We (Aussie here) are only very much at the beginning of this journey of true emancipation of indigenous populations and I think it will be vital that we get it right! That we develop true eye-to-eye relationships between all nations.

Believe prison you lose you should lose all rights being in prison they give you the opportunity to work and gain respect for themselves again no they need to work while in prison just to feel worthy of themselves. You sit around and do nothing in prison you rot like a bad piece of fruit just sitting there.

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Out of curiosity, you placed a few things in parentheses... I don't think there are multiple (definitions) of slavery. I think your (knowledge) of what US schools teach is very outdated. And I think using (colonialism) and (Australian aborigines) as your only two examples shows a very weak argument for what you've learned about humans. (Yesterday or today).

Out of curiosity, did my use of brackets bother you? I think my knowledge of the US education system is outdated which why I made a point of not stating the point as a fact. My use of two examples was to emphasize that it wasn't just the US with a dark past, do I really need to point out more?

Based your three comments, and your own admission, your information is significantly outdated and you should stop speaking on things you know nothing about. Actually, it's worse than ignorant, it's incorrect and could qualify as disinformation. For all of those here in the US trying to make change, just stop

The USA continues to receive criticism because it continues to produce negative news involving racist incidents from the president to the police to the regular Joe who would rather shoot an innocent black kid on his doorstep than direct him to the correct address. Unfortunately, the USA has been largely constructed on slavery whose driving force was greed and fear, these two mal developments are still at the forefront of USA's capalistic society.

I think Germany's pretty aware of its past lol.

Germany has done a pretty good job at confronting its past. It’s an ongoing project.

Are either of you actually from the US? What gives you the authority to say that the US isn't aware of its past or hasn't been good about confronting it?

Considering you (the US) are currently the dominant writers of history, you cannot deny people to ask for your own history and the way you deal with it I'd think.

Dominant writers of history? They can't even agree on their own let alone the rest of the world. FYI The Bible is not a history book!

The problem is that this is an european site. And europeans are quite sick of US of A painting themselves as better than all of the rest of the world, this hero complex, being perfect and telling everyone how to live their lifes, when you can clearly see that this is not true at all. You started many wars, acting like you're freeing a foreign country but you did it out of greed for the riches. You are deeply racist. In germany, we accept that we are the villains of WW2, but never ever would i have to give my race to get a flat or be shunned for having natural hair as a colored person in a workspace or something like zhat. The US is unlikable on so many levels and cries how wonderful it is and can't even feed its people or get them health care.

It's strange that a German would criticize the USA for claiming to be "better than all of the rest of the world". The first words of your national anthem BEFORE the Nazi era were "Germany, Germany, over everyone"!

Look, you are seriously generalizing an entire country of 300 million+ people and you is makes you look pretty resentful and uninformed. There is a huge section of the U.S. population that did not and do not support that actions of our government. Often our policy makers and representatives don't even support these actions, they're just out-numbered in votes by the other political party(usually Republicans). Yes, Germany has "owned" it's past but Holy c**p you don't really have much choice if you expect to have any respect on a global scale. To be clear, we have wonderful family friends who live in East Germany and we don't hold the actions of their government against them just as they don't hold the actions of our government against us. A lot of people have a seriously misguided view of us so maybe get a little more informed. You sound pretty ignorant. BTW, it's illegal to ask someone's race when they're applying for a loan or renting a "flat." We call them houses and apartments.

The point is that the Germans have accepted their past - warts and all - the US have to a large part not even started to understand their history. That may still take a long, long time until the maturity as a country has developed, that allows it to work through it's history. Same with Australia. But the first signs are coming through here as well.

Because our last "president" was trash. It amplified all our past atrocities into the present. Believe me when I say I was not fond of Bush Jr, or the war he reignited for his father.... Or many other "leaders" this country has had... Bored 🐼 community members seem to not be able to look past about 10 years ago. We have contributed to the world positively, but as I can speak from definite personal experience...our fallacies and negatives are what are remembered always.

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You must be referring to Obama

You must be very uneducated or have a selective memory.

Lol, classic brittle ego, eh? A LOT of countries get a lot of s**t for their past. It's not just the US at all. And uuuh, look, you're not banned for your comment about Germany. 😱 It's like no one is after you to cancel you. Btw, one difference is HOW countries deal with their dark past more than it's about the past. Germany openly teaches WWII and holocaust everywhere, works on prevention and outlaws publicly denying the holocaust or supporting the Nazi regime. In the US natives still aren't compensated and people want to pretend like the slave thing wasn't that bad and they only gave black people certain civil rights about two decades after WWII, but they rather don't address it. So THAT'S the difference. But everyone who's somewhat interesting gets some s**t. So, keep calm, no one's after the US specifically. They're not THAT special.

Exactly I'd like for all these people complaining about the US tell me where is there a better place to live there's was slavery years and years ago of all kinds of people not just the Irish not just the Black Irish not just black people from Africa slavery existed everywhere if you wanted to come to the United States you had to sell your soul to get here unless you were rich and had money in your pockets.

Germany also started WWI if I'm not mistaken.

So, yes....well all already see your rebuttal in advance. However, please look into who the slave runners, from Africa to "the new world" were. Who was profetting from a created industry. Yes, we were the buyers. This is not a good example by any means, but the only one coming to mind right now, who's more culpable in the opioid crisis? The manufacturers or the addicts?

Yep - definitely agree - the whole of Europe did not look particularly clean in this regard, which completely explains, why the rest of the world may not love us quite as much as we're often told to believe. Und that the rest of the world may mutter "you had your time - our turn, our rules now" Interesting times ahead - the endstage of capitalism. "Change of an era" as Olaf Scholz called it.

Your post makes it sound like things get less bad (or at least less in need to be addressed) when the last person that lived though it dies but imagine if we did that with the Holocaust. The atrocities of the British empire not only largely ignored by the British education system (which I went through btw) but the empire itself is often virtually always remembered in a positive way and sometimes even celebrated by certain elements of the media.

Not at all Tams, but think people are willfully misconstruing my comment or are ignorant or history. I've stated that the British Empire was atrocious and and that I learned this in school in the UK in the 80's although I caveated this by saying I went to Catholic school (state school not private) and therefore less likely to paint colonial history in a positive light. Just because people in the US are now learning all this doesn't mean people in the UK haven't known this for ages. In the example of the US, it is a different political and ethical issue because legally imposed racial segregation and suppression of human rights went on into very recent history. There are people alive who created and maintained those laws and people who suffered under them. We in the UK cannot resurrect the dead to be held account but some people in the US sure can be. Just like living prison guards from the holocaust can still be held to account now.

I learnt about the atrocities of the Empire in the 80's at school but then I went to Catholic school so maybe that's the difference.

What the H E L L difference does that make? Just because the UK screwed people longer ago and in a different way, that makes it less heinous than what happened in the US? And do you think we don't learn about slavery and Jim Crowe laws in school? Maybe you don't study the East India Company in the UK? Give that a long think before you come back pissing on the US again. Unbelievable.

I'm saying people alive now were perpetrators or victims. There's no one alive now to remember the East India Company or the Empire as it was disbanded so long ago. Actually having people alive now that enforced segregation and believed in it as a system makes a big difference to the current collective psychology of the nation of the US. Also remember the US was a colony of the UK, the crimes committed therein were shared.

The British ARE still an empire, by definition. They have FOURTEEN overseas territories. How is that not an empire? And the US had no say in what the British Empire’s actions; that’s why they fought for independence. How could they share the blame for atrocities committed if they had no say in the matter? The US and England both have shameful aspects of their history, but what you are saying is honestly stupid. Just because the people who lived through or participated in an event are dead, doesn’t make it any better. Go ahead, downvote me into oblivion, but that isn’t going to change anything.

The US has territories too.

Yeah well, you had already done a lot of slaughtering by then - there must have come a certain saturation point.