There's another assumption going on too, which may explain another component of the shock. People educated in the USA and UK tend to assume that both education and work are based on meritocracy. So when a minority from another country points out this isn't the case, and perhaps even not the case anywhere by offering examples, it can be shocking to people who have spent their entire educational and career trajectory in 'the system' which presupposes meritocracy.

Growing up in Boston specifically - there was quite a lot of awareness of the inequality in the US. Boston has certainly made an effort to address inequality but the old racial divides between communities were quite visible and active racism was still all around me growing up.

In terms of nepotism in particular - we had the Kennedy's, honestly not the worst political dynasty in America but a pretty clear example of name trumping qualifications. I've since emigrated, but I think I was probably disabused of any glorification of the land of opportunity and american exceptionalism by the time I finished middle school.

I wasn't saying that racism or divisiveness aren't present in the US. I am absolutely with you on that, both of those things are present in the US to one degree or another, depending on where you live in.

I was simply saying that a significant number of people in the US get so myopically focused on those issues locally, they don't realize that there is a whole world out there, where those same issues are massively more rampant and ubiquitous. And when they suddenly discover that through a first-hand or a second-hand experience, it is understandable they would be shocked.

OP was saying that sheltered Americans think America is racist, but other countries aren't/have fixed it.

Are you providing anecdotal evidence to support him or were you trying to disprove?

Nope actually - I just fully misread his comment and thought he was saying that Americans don't think America is racist.

Sorry about that!

The irony in this is that it's yet another manifestation of the American Exceptionalism myth, merely applied with the opposite sign.

There's other stuff like that, too. For example, many Americans - especially progressive left politically, but plenty on the right as well - appear to believe that single payer is the norm in the developed world, and US is unique in deviating from that recipe for universal healthcare, even when discussing other options. When you tell them that one can opt to go with fully private insurance in Germany, or that Switzerland runs on something like ACA (much better done, obviously - but the same basic principle), it just doesn't compute.

Or gun control: some lefties literally refuse to believe that civilians can own an AR-15 in Germany, or a silencer in UK, or carry a handgun concealed in Czechia, without much trouble.

I mean... They have serious misunderstanding how Europe works and how the "almighty" US can come in 17th place in freedom according to pretty much every single rating.

PS: US doesn't have universal healthcare, but universal healthcare doesn't imply that government must provide the services.

Yes, I know. I meant the ongoing discussions about how it should look like when we do get it. A lot of M4A agitprop is built on that notion that it would be uniquely bad in comparison to other countries for US to go for anything other than single payer.

I get why this is, propaganda aside - the only developed country that borders US is Canada, so their health system is the one that Americans are most familiar with, and the one that's most often used as a prop in political debates here. And Canada is single payer...

But even that doesn't fully explain it. For example, all proponents of M4A in US want to implement it on the federal level. Canadian healthcare system was created bottom-up - started in one province due to popular demand, gradually adopted by others as it became obvious that the benefits vastly exceed any downsides, and eventually the feds stepped into the coordinating role, but provinces still retain the final say as they can always opt out of that federal system. So, why can't US do the same? For that matter, why shouldn't the states be able to decide for themselves whether they prefer the Canadian model, the German one, or the Swiss one - and then we can see which one works better here? I never got coherent answers to any of those questions.

I've realized this as well. It's probably an "overcorrection" of the perceived average (racially biased) image of a people (which guess what, ends up being prejudiced as well).