North American culture is bizzare, and I say that as someone who spent the majority of my life on that continent. Even as a child, there was something artifical and fake about it. Although I did grow up in a very poor, rural, religious area which was extremely isolated from what one would typically consider western culture. It took leaving all of that behind to see how truly backwards and toxic that environment was.
I don't think people realize it, but Americans and Canadians are very competitive, and from birth are forced to compete in a deeply entrenched system of inequality. It always blew my mind that my run down school with no textbooks, barely any subjects offered, and high rates of illiteracy, teen pregnancy, and drop outs, existed in the same country as prestigious boarding schools, academies for gifted children, and institutes where high school aged students could take university courses. It was a lifestyle that I could never fathom.
Sports are a beloved aspect of culture that also perpetuate inequality, because for some reason they are seen as more important than or on par with academics. You wouldn't believe how much money is given to rural schools in an attempt to improve children's education, only for it to go towards useless SPORTS.
In rural communities especially, sports are a huge deal. Not only did being disabled from autism deeply effect me as a child, but my chance at making friends was effectively stamped out because I could not play sports. No team would let me play because I was dyspraxic and simply not good at physical activities. The fact that I went to a bad school where most people are way behind was seen as a personal failing, because I didn't know as a child that I'd have to spend the rest of my life playing catch up for the education I didn't receive.
The resources for disadvantaged people are scarce or non existent. It is hard, if not impossible, for many people to receive disability payments, and what they do get is paltry at best. Many people I knew were forced to live in abject poverty and fully dependent on others simply because they were sick or disabled and could no longer work.
There is a pervasive disdain for disabled people in american culture due to rugged individualism. Many people believe in bullshit conspiracies about benefit fraud and go around harassing those who are less fortunate because they want to have cock measuring contests about who the "hardest, most independent" worker is.
Which brings me to another point. The work culture. I am sure in some places it isn't this way because all states provinces etc are not equal, but in many parts of the US and Canada the way workers are treated is on par with the absurd expectations placed on employees in strict Asian countries. No control over when you go to the bathroom, very few breaks, not accommodating the disabled and elderly, scheduling which leaves people overworked and pushed to the breaking point. Regulations to protect employees in many places are few or far in between and are rarely enforced.
In multiple workplaces, people with arthritis and other health conditions were forced to stand on concrete for hours, because it makes you "look more productive" than sitting down. A colleague of mine in a shop ended up having a stroke because she was overworked and kept being called lazy, all because she requested a chair to have during work. Not wanting to kill yourself over your job is seen as a character flaw, seeming productive is more important than doing work efficiently or quickly. In a minimum wage job, at 18 years old, I had a manager slagging off my appearance and not allowing me to do another role because I was autistic and he didn't like my speech issues. No one there cares about how disabled workers are treated, unless you live in a leftist paradise.
I was worked like a dog and developed chronic pain at 19 years old because of it. I now have spinal degeneration, and for what? To be paid the equivalent of 7.25 usd per hour and be abused by coworkers, customers, and managers. The amount of humiliation I faced in several different jobs was immense, I was forced to scrub toilets on my hands and knees while coworkers sat outside on their phones, smoking a pack. I was screamed at for needing toilet breaks. Fired for being sick with pneumonia and glandular fever too many days (A grand total of 5 in one year) Yet, I will always be seen as lazy to everyone I knew in that shitty country.
There is also the attitude that America is the best place in the world, and one must follow arbitrary rules because that's the way it's always been done. So many things do not change due to the stubbornness of the culture. Accommodations could easily be offered, yet people do not want to shatter their illusion of individualism and toughness, so they make others suffer simply because they had to suffer too. I remember being told before I dropped out that I would need to pay 9,000 usd per year to share a room (not a house or flat, a room) with someone sleeping 6 feet away from me, and my autism was no excuse to get out of that arrangement, because it was the University RULES that you had to live in a dormitory with rooms shares (and they leech more money from you this way.) Greed and corruption is abundant, because no standards are ever imposed to prevent against this inequality.
Education, as I mentioned, is one huge example. Not only do people get accepted into universities for their athletic qualifications and not their academic ones, getting free rides when they often aren't qualified to do their course because so much of their time has went into sports training and not school, but universities can teach whatever the hell they want and there are very few standards ensuring quality education, or making sure students are protected against discrimination.
If a professor verbally abuses you or doesn't show up to do their teaching, you can't do shit about it if they have tenure! Not to mention things like the bell curve trying to weed people out of the course to force competition. Comparatively, the education I received in the UK is day and night, because things were organised and standards were clear from the get go.
The way people treat each other is often terrible too. It's very tribalistic and partisan. People are very smug and think that everyone who doesn't bat for their team is a stupid idiot. I knew people who would cut off their friends or family if they weren't posting political shit all the time or didn't want to comment on an issue if they weren't comfortable forming an opinion on it or didn't have the necessary information to generate an informed conclusion about the matter. This childish behaviour is exhausting and uniquely american. I have never seen a person in Europe who will throw a hissy fit if you aren't making posts on facebook about current issues all day.
I do miss the food, the music, and other aspects of the culture, but overall I feel that America is a toxic place. There is a constant artifical, sanitizer veneer of niceness orbiting every social interaction, wherein many people will be saccharine to your face and then stab you in the back. It is probably a nice playground for the rich, but not the marginalised. I would rather CTB on the spot than ever live in America again.
