Europeans don't understand this about the US. My ex-husband NEVER got it, and offended a lot of people.

Americans, especially white Americans, unless they're relatively sure they're at least in the same political ballpark do not discuss their politics with each other. https://twitter.com/KameronHurley/status/1325441376717246467

You could say this is both a symptom and the disease, but think of how we started: a bunch of absolutely religious lunatics on one hand, who got kicked out for being too hardcore, on another, a bunch of rich slavers, all of whom exploited the native ppl, slaves, and the poor.

s/absolutely/absolute

If you think a lot of America has moved beyond that, think again.

We're not that far, historically speaking, from our (first) civil war.

As a child, in two of the communities I lived in, I got beaten up and/or harassed for my (lack of) religious beliefs.

I still remember a kid called Michael Grishaw telling me his mom said I worshipped the devil for not taking a Bible the Gideons had illegally brought to school.

I remember absolutely nothing else about him, just that.

In SC, I had a friend, briefly, who was not allowed to watch The Wiz at my house because it had Black actors in it.

In 1981.

Europeans who complain about the American veneer of friendliness don't, I think, understand the purpose it serves, for better or worse. It keeps us from leaping up and killing each other.

But it also keeps us from facing our problems.

I had a well-meaning supervisor in Indiana for some volunteer teaching I did write me a recommendation letter for a teaching job in LA.

In that letter, she wrote something like "Even though she has very different views on religion than most people, she's got a good heart"

Which I had to mention to her that folks in Los Angeles would probably read very differently.

I'd never realised that she'd actually thought I might not have a good heart just because I didn't attend church.

So... the thing is... we don't talk. Separate worlds.

The palpable relief when you find out a friend or coworker, usually accidentally, shares your political beliefs is a strange, strange thing.

You feel like conspirators if you're in a majority-other-belief environment.

Now take this "we don't talk politics" crap and then realise that the "just politics" we don't talk about are people's goddamned lives.

"Just politics" isn't just politics. It's social justice. It's equity. It's sexuality. It's race. It's gender.

If you make those things "just politics", and politics are taboo amongst friends and neighbours, because we might rise up and strangle each other, then NOTHING GETS SOLVED.

So... America is complicated.

I have a coworker who claims a great deal of expertise on the US from watching it, though they've never been there, and I really need to hammer this point home.

The American political debate hides a wealth of cancerously unaddressed issues, coming from never adddressing history.