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To Every American Who's Sorry (from the Greenland subreddit) (thelemmy.club)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/justpost@lemmy.world
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Didn't know where to post this but man, I so get it.

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[–] 41 points 7 months ago (8 children)

Part of it, I think, is that a random person apologizing on behalf of an entire country is rather pointless. It doesn't benefit that other country at all (in a personal sense a genuine apology might provide reassurance that the apologizer doesn't intend to repeat some offense, but a person apologizing for an entire country, that they don't control, can make no such garuntee, same as apologizing on behalf of an unrepentant stranger would be pointless). The only thing it really does is make the person apologizing feel slightly better about what is going on.

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  • [–] 42 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    rather pointless

    If little actions like that didn't happen, the international stage would see us as a monolith all supporting Trump. Your only source of truth would be our media.

    That would be horrible.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago

    I get that sentiment, but consider: there are orders of magnitude more people in the US than Greenland. As such, if Americans go into communities for Greenland to demonstrate to them that we don't all support Trump in such a way, the result would be less a "little thing" and more the people actually using that community getting bombarded with Americans apologizing for the actions of other Americans in a space meant to be for Greenland. I'm not from there and so can't say for sure how that comes across, but I at least imagine that were I from Greenland, I'd probably find this far more annoying than reassuring.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Isnt that exactly what the post is addressing? It's something us-americans do for themselves, for their image in front of the world. It is not done for the greenlanders and therefore leaves a bitter taste.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Many of us have empathy, and feel terrible that the rest of the world has to deal with the bullshit that a third of our country and half our political system has voted for. Your comment seems to be blind to that fact.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    and feel terrible that the rest of the world has to deal with the bullshit that a third of our country and half our political system has voted for

    And that energy needs to be directed at reducing and preventing the bullshit. Apologizing to Greenland does nothing for the bullshit they have to deal with.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    All apologies only server to make the apologizer feel better. Should we just stop doing it altogether?

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    huh? that's literally not the point of apologies? they're explicitly about taking responsibility, acknowledging harm done, expressing genuine remorse and committing to real actionable change.

    the issue in the OP is when people say "I'm sorry about the orange cheeto - I didn't vote for this you don't deserve to be treated this way" - this is useless and performative and serves to mostly make the person apologising feel better.

    instead a real apology would take ownership and commit to action: "I'm sorry I didn't do more, and here's what I'll do going forward (mobilise, organize, agitate, etc)"

    and even then it might still not make a difference and people might still hate you but we don't fight fascists to win or to feel better about ourselves but because they are fascists..

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    You actually think it makes them feel any better? Like they’re actually doing a narcissistic masturbation and patting themselves on the back for having done their part? THAT’S your projection of events? Jesus Christ lmao it’s a completely ordinary way of revealing to others there are citizens on their side too

    You sound more irony poisoned and cynical than the fictional character you just made up

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