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  • For me it was when I was around 8 or 9 and met someone from Kenya. They could speak perfect English, wore normal clothes, and talked about having electricity. I'd literally never been told that those things existed in Africa - every reference to that continent only talked about tribes and jungles, save for Egypt which only talked about ruins and deserts. I asked around and found that most of the rest of the world has the same stuff we have, and most countries have a functioning government. I was so confused - why were we the country of freedom when everyone else has the same thing?

    At the time I just assumed that there was something I was missing, or maybe the rest of the world just caught up to our idea, but eventually I came to the conclusion that they tell us we're the country of freedom - and keep our studies of other countries to a minimum when we're young - so that we can internalize the rhetoric that our country is the best before we find out that most other countries about the same, and often better in certain ways.

    • Just think which countries make their kids pledge alliance to the flag in schools.

      • I realized that later, yeah. That's not something that a kid would usually realize is bad on their own, though; if it's something you and everyone you know has always done, most people wouldn't think to question it.

  • When I graduated from college. I was fed the, "work hard, go to college, live well" spiel. I worked hard, I went to college, graduated with honors.

    All I have to show for it is debt.

    I work a job that's... Fine, but I also cry most days because of the misery of it. I haven't gone to a doctor in years because I can't afford it. I can barely save (I have, like, $100 in "savings"). I will likely never be a home owner, and I will most likely have to work until I die, which breaks my spirit the more I think about it.

    On less personal note, when I got to sit at the "grown up" table in regards to politics, I quickly realized that (most) people in government either don't give a shit or actively work against the peoples interest. I hear of other countries with their free Healthcare and education, workers rights, pensions, and I weep with envy. America is like a third world country in a first world mask.

  • Reading A People's History of the United States put that on my radar. I hadn't given the idea any thought until a college course assigned this book. I was educated in a standard American public school during the Reagan and Clinton eras, complete with Pledge of Allegiance. The standard schoolbooks omit a lot of atrocities and smooth over the ugly reality.

    Whatever legitimate criticisms you lay on it, Zinn's takedown opened my worldview and intensified my pre-existing anti-authoritarian streak.

    9/11 happened shortly after and by then I considered Bush an illegitimate president. I watched him wage an unjustified war, and with the whole of our bloody rampage across the globe that clicked neatly into place. "America #1" is a sick joke.

  • For me it was around when I joined the furry fandom.

    Grew up in a small, secluded town in the deep south, one with a 99.3% white majority at the time and wasn't far from a sundown area. I was very much sheltered from outside culture and world views both by my mother and just from the circumstances of where I lived. Throw in some undiagnosed autism and a deeply trusting nature, and I was effectively set to stay in the mental cesspool of my peers.

    As a troubled teen facing emotional and religious trauma from an abusive father figure, I turned to escapism wherever I could, and once I got my first computer I started getting into PC gaming online, and I eventually found a furry friendly server on a Half-Life 2 mod.

    All of the sudden I'm talking to people of all places and creeds. Most were Americans, sure, but there were tons of folks from far more backgrounds and environments than I'd ever seen before. And most were furries. People from a generally more left leaning background who are also comfortably open about sexuality. Found out I liked dudes from them, cause I'd genuinely never even considered that as a possibility until then and mom hadn't instilled her anti gay rhetoric in me yet.

    And of course, I started learning new things from them. Things I'd never heard of before, things that would never be taught at the school I went to. I learned of the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments, of MK ULTRA, of Guantanamo Bay and the atrocities there. That roughly 1 in four prisoners in the world are in American prisons. That the pledge of allegiance is really fucking weird. I learned of the massive income inequality we're troubled with, of the police brutality our people of color experience, that our healthcare system is utterly broken by design, that our lawmakers are paid for and bought out, and of course I learned that this list is FAR from exhaustive - feel free to add to this list!

    Plus just generally interacting with people from other countries and cultures, seeing these different perspectives and world views and experiences, it all helped me slowly, gradually realize that there's so much beautiful culture and so many beautiful people in this mote of dust we all share. Cultures and people that so many of my peers were apathetic towards most often, mildly entertained by in media and media alone at best, and actively hostile towards at worst. Just the idea of my neighbor yelling obscenities towards a Latino man for working the exploitative jobs that Americans would never touch themselves broke my young heart.

    Once Trump's campaign really started taking steam, I was a very different person from who my mom wanted me to be, and though it drove a wedge between us (on top of her just being a shit parent for me), I prefer it this way.

  • When I moved out of my parents house and stopped watching fox news.

    I figured out pretty quickly that there were really big differences between Fox,NBC and CNN, at that point I saw CNN as being approximately truthful.

    A couple years later one of the guys that worked with had CNN lies bumper stickers. I thought BS, but realized I really should see what it was about.

    I looked into that. And found that he wasn't wrong but it was way more complicated than that.

    I realized that even the news channels with the most journalistic integrity still have numbers to make. If I'm not riled up they consider me under-consuming. And there were still agendas here and there.

  • I grew up as a military brat and was thoroughly disillusioned about the US military before I was a teenager. On the UK RAF bases, i believe they tone down the jingoistic americanism a bit to not disturb the locals.

    Everything else is just learning actual US history, and interacting with veterans; we're pretty fucked up for a country that hasn't even hit 300 years of age yet.

  • To answer your question: in college, gradually.

    We can't just say we're "the best country in the world", we have to live it. We have to, each of us, take responsibility to make it so. Instead, I see far too many people taking what others in the country might have done (We went to the moon first!) to stand as credit for their own personal pride. Not saying you can't be grateful for what's been accomplished, but there's many who just ride on it and don't really contribute anything meaningful of their own.

  • I think since at least middle school. I was already aware of some of the lies and "half truths" that they were teaching us. I don't remember most of what they taught us but I remember telling some of my classmates about it and they acted like I was weird.

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