There are many debates on all sorts of subjects on social media. Often people argue about very arcane stuff. It’s very touching to observe people caring about all kinds of obscure subjects.
One thing is invariable in all these discussions. There are always comments by Americans feeling oppressed. You see a wide variety of takes, some very dumb, some funny. But Americans inevitably find an opportunity to burn with righteous indignation about some utterly invented oppression or injustice. There’s no topic that is immune. “How dare you talk about collecting ancient coins when there are people who are too oppressed to have a hobby!” “Many more people would enjoy painting by numbers if they didn’t have to spend every waking moment trying to survive being Black and brown in America!”
I read a discussion yesterday about which college courses it makes sense to take to prepare for graduate studies in a certain discipline, and every 3 minutes somebody would pipe up with reminders about how some structurally oppressed people are too deprived to take any courses. Which is true and we all know it but what’s the point of bringing it up?
This is very different from, for instance, Spanish-languge discussions. People yell, insult, argue but I have never, not once, seen anybody wrap themselves in a cloak of being wounded by structural oppressions. Even those who are really oppressed don’t do that. I follow a bunch of dissident Venezuelans, and they get very angry about what’s been done to their country. But they never assume the persona of a martyred defender of the oppressed. They don’t try to shut down discussions by appeals to extraneous (and usually imaginary) suffering.
I deeply love Americans but enough with this moralistic, preachy crap already.
Clarissa's Blog 
“always comments by Americans feeling oppressed”
I think you’re misreading these incidences (maybe because of your soviet background?).
All the examples you cite are people complaining about barriers faced by others. One of the most important roads to social prestige in the US (for individuals and groups) is concern for others’ well-being. Despite the stereotypes many/most Americans are very concerned about those less well off and in times of extreme social inequality may mean people talk about it or mention it more.
Granted, it can be exaggerated in dumb ways and mutate into weird stuff like telescopic philanthropy but the baseline of concern for others (not really a part of Latin American discourse except in the most abstract and useless ways possible) is a core value. It probably comes from the frontier experience which was very formative of what people like to call national character. If someone’s wagon starts falling behind people don’t just go on like nothing has happened but stop and help fix it.
Given that current inequality in the US is close to reaching or exceding the gilded age will make many people who aren’t particularly suffering still feel out of sorts and anxious and express it in those ways.
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In SA people build whole careers out of being martyred defenders of the oppressed. The most notorious examples are ivy league grads who find corporate jobs tiresome.
https://www.seanmuller.co.za/notesfromtheperiphery/2023/06/04/the-many-faces-of-eusebius-mckaiser/
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“It’s touching to see you really care about those people, have you given any serious consideration to changing your career so you can help them directly?”
Evelyn Waugh would have made that into a novel. 🙂
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