My View on America.

My assignment was to look at a set of pictures. Each was a photo of a person holding the american flag and below was their description of america in one word. We was told to choose one photo and explain how our opinions of america were different or similar to the person in the photo. I chose the photo that said "open-minded."

The photo that intrigued me the most was the one that said America is “open-minded.” My opinion of America is pretty much the exact opposite. America is known to be a place of freedom, but in reality, nothing is free and almost everything is an obstacle. I don’t understand how America can be called open-minded if simple products like video games can be taken off the shelves because of certain sensitivities other people had. Little things like this can set off a huge amount of controversy, while there isn’t as many people up in arms about more important things going on in this in this world.

Even during the Civil Rights Movement, America was being called a “free country.” This idea boggled my mind. If it takes countless African American people to fight and die for what they believe before they get recognition, America is not open-minded. If this were the case, slavery, segregation, and the civil rights movement would have never happened. But that’s just based on America’s past.

Nowadays, the United States of America is known for being one of the richest, most powerful countries in the world. I believe this is simply because of how greedy and stingy America is with money. Taxes are high, but job income is low. Therefore America is making a profit and giving almost nothing back to the people who live there. If the government can’t understand the struggles of their own people, how can America be open-minded?

The photograph I selected is pretty different from the rest. Most photos had America described as something it strives on, like business, money, choice, and possibility. As a whole, it just gives another person’s point of view, but in actuality, I can’t blame the person in the photo. Not to sound like a stereotype, but to me, he looks Jewish. During the Holocaust, America stepped in, to give a big helping hand. So I can see why a Jewish person could view America as open-minded because despite their religious views, America helped distinguish the holocaust. But in this case, America was a hypocrite for thinking keeping Jewish people out of concentration camps while America had concentration camps of there own, which held Japanese Americans.

If someone asked me “what is America?” I would tell them that America is “phony”. America tries as hard as possible to portray itself as some kind of saint, as well as if they have always been on the right path. If nobody fought for what they believed in, things would still be the same today as they were back during segregation and racism. Even during this day and age, people have to fight for simple subjects like gay rights. America was never open-minded and I don’t know if I will see a day when it will be.

As a whole, I enjoyed this art project. It showed me that everyone doesn’t have the same view of my country. I think this is a good thing because everyone should have his or her own opinion. I believe the overall message this project wants to get across is that based on a person’s different experiences, they aught to have a different view of there own country.