Talk:Americentrism

Why?

Why is there a special page for American ethnocentrism? "Americentrism" is not a word; this article should be under ethnocentrism. I'm surprised a page like this is considered NPOV. -- Goatasaur

I wondered the same thing when I saw the page on Jewish ethnocentrism; I'd been assuming that ethnocentrism was a fairly straightforward subject, regardless of the ethnicity on which it centers. Apparently, however, we seem to be going the route of detailed study of each specific instance of ethnocentrism. If that is indeed the case, I probably should think about preparing an article on Brecqhou ethnocentrism, regarding which there is a substantial amount of material. -- Hephaestos 02:50 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)

You're preaching to the choir here. If I were so bold I would try to meld all the splintered ethnocentrism articles into one big whopping article. I don't understand the need to define specific instances of ethnocentrism, because they all have the same "symptoms". -- Goatasaur

Google search came up with 43 hits...

Perhaps, what you mean is: specialized info about american ethnocentrism should find a place on the ethnocentrism article? -&#35918&#30505

That's exactly what I mean. You should be aware that 43 hits on Google is a pretty piddly amount. A Google search on my name yielded 21 hits. :) -- Goatasaur

Means Western supremacy?

Considering the discussion going on over at List of United States people, this article obviously means the feeling of superiority by all people of the Western Hemisphere. -- Zoe

Americentrism involves negating / minimizing all other countries, including Western nations. How can Americentrism be seen as promoting Western nations such as Germany, France, Australia, when it minimizes and diminishes them? Information yes (talk) 11:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

LOL That was a very Americentric thing to say, Zoe...! Obviously Americentrism = Occidentalism... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.9.1.157 (talk) 21:34, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Redirection to ethnocentrism

Oh, I come here to find most of what I was about to say is already said.

1. The entry was not much more than a dictionary definition, not encyclopedic.
2. The entry doesn't say much more than "Americentrism = American Ethnocentrism", hence it is covered (and can be expanded on) in ethnocentrism.
3. Internet searches show that this "word" isn't used in any sort of meaningful way, nor is there any agreed meaning.

You are right that the entry right now is not much more than a dictionary definition. But there is a lot to be said on this topic, and not just what can be covered in the ethnocentrism article. I came to the discussion page to see what other users thought of what I wanted to add to the article, and instead uncovered a secret deletion plot. CyborgTosser 17:42, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Secret? How is it secret? Clearly almost everyone is in agreement here. This article should be deleted, not because the page doesnt deserve to exist, but because the content is seriously lacking in...well...content. Whatever can be salvaged from this article should be added to Ethnocentrism with a dead link to Americentrism or maybe something less madeup like "American Centralism" (frankly I could care less about the name as long as it remains NPOV) until actual, quality content is added by someone. Hope I dont sound too much like an S.O.B. freestylefrappe 23:41, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

NPOV tag

I have tagged the article as POV because as currently written, it seems to label all Americans as ethnocentric, which of course many Americans would dispute. I'm not sure whether someone wants to claim that some people think all Americans are ethnocentric, or if they want to claim that some Americans are ethnocentric, so I'm reluctant to try to fix the article myself. -- Beland 09:57, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Converted back into article

This was changed in the past to a redirect to nationalism in the United States. I have converted it back into a stub article, since we also have Afrocentrism, Eurocentrism, and Sinocentrism. There doesn't seem to be anything in the history of the original article worth salvaging. — Hex (❝?!❞) 02:18, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Facts needed

Americentrism is a new word. As far as I can tell it's less than 7 yrs old and may well be younger. Most google hits were copied from this page, that is use the exact same definition as this page. So we need to know who coined this word and when? Or better yet go back to American Ethnocentrism - because we already have enough words without making up new ones just to save 8 letters. Nitpyck (talk) 21:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Americentrism needs more sources to help define what it is. It was also found the sociology stubs and needs content about why and how it is important to the field of sociology. Also, with the section, in the media, there needs to be more content in each subject affiliated with Americentrism. For example, there needs to be a background history about why the European Commission is considered Americentric. Same with the celebrates and with Wikipedia being accused of Americentrism. Lastly, there needs to be more concepts and words that revolve around Amercentrism such as theories. Coasp3 (talk) 19:07, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

White supremacy category

Why is that present? How can Americentrism be considered to be part of white supremacy? Many non-white Americans are Americentric. Plus, the majority of whites in the world are not in or from the United States, so an Americentric white supremacist would be contradicting himself and 'shooting himself in the foot' by demeaning whites abroad and promoting hostility between American whites and non-American whites. I'm not saying there aren't White American nationalists. However, the large majority of Americentic people are not white supremacists, and the large majority of white supremacists are not Americentric. Therefore, the cat does not apply to this article. Information yes (talk) 11:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Statement is not true

"The authors Ziauddin Sardar, a Pakistan-born British Muslim, and Merryl Wyn Davies, writing about the overt Americentrism of the US media have referred to a phenomenon known as 'the international balcony' where events in US dramas typically begin with a US setting, shift to a generically 'foreign' (usually Eastern European) location and are then resolved in the US.[2]" US dramas almost never shift to a usually Eastern European location. Law and Order for instance seldom strays from NYC. In a recent list of New Yorker openings and previews 14 plays were set in US, 5 are set in Europe (one in Russia) and none move from US to a foreign land and back. Nitpyck (talk) 03:12, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Did a search in Google books and the term "international balcony" is not found in the cited book. "Drama" was found 4 times none of them relating to this theory that American Drama typically sets part of the action in a generically foreign setting. So what is the page number that justifies the cited statement? Nitpyck (talk) 21:27, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Read the book and could not find this statement. Unless someone finds the page where this statement written I'm going to delete it. "The authors Ziauddin Sardar, a Pakistan-born British Muslim, and Merryl Wyn Davies, writing about the overt Americentrism of the US media have referred to a phenomenon known as 'the international balcony' where events in US dramas typically begin with a US setting, shift to a generically 'foreign' (usually Eastern European) location and are then resolved in the US." Nitpyck (talk) 22:24, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

References

lol

Ironically, the first sentence in this article says "center". Correctrix (talk) 23:32, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

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Examples from Wikipedia and real life, and why I think the phenomenon is not 'just' a kind of ethnocentrism

Aside from the question of whether 'Americanocentrism' would be etymologically more accurate (since the adjective is 'American', not 'Americ'), and whether 'America(n)' should even be used to refer only to the United States rather than the Americas in general, I've just found what I consider an example of the phenomenon in the Wikipedia article on Lily-Rose Depp. She was born to an English-speaking father (Johnny Depp) and a French-speaking mother (Vanessa Paradis), so it would not be all that surprising to find that she speaks both languages well. In any case, the English version of the article simply tells us 'Depp is fluent in French'. I assume she's also fluent in English, but the article simply takes that for granted - the (surely incorrect) assumption being that the average reader of English-language Wikipedia articles has an Anglocentric, and in this case Ameri(cano)centric, world view, in which everyone 'really' speaks English, and speaking even one other language is deemed an unusual achievement, or unusual full stop. In contrast, the French version of the article doesn't mention which languages she speaks, let alone say 'Depp is fluent in English'. The German version has unfortunately translated the English sentence as it stands - but in German that of course implies she ONLY speaks French, which strikes me as most unlikely. Unfortunately, none of these versions tells us whether Depp actually speaks English. It would have made more sense to say 'Depp is fluent in English and French' (or 'French and English') - or else nothing at all.

Someone had already commented on this, and received a reply - I strongly suspect from a US reader! - that since Depp had spent most of her life in the US (something I didn't know, but the reader seemed to assume anyone would) the surely unremarkable fact that she could speak her own mother's language was worth mentioning. So I've added a counter-comment, citing the above reasons.

I'm also reminded here of a real-life occurrence, which is more specifically Ameri(cano)centric. A US friend of mine brought her elderly mother to visit Europe for the first time in her life, and the trip began in Rome. At the end of the first day my friend asked her mother what she thought of it all. The reply: 'I have such admiration for these Italian housewives!' When my friend asked why, her mother said 'Well, just imagine having to divide all the prices in the market by 819!' - the current exchange rate of the US dollar in Italian liras (this was years before Italy adopted the euro). Even as she heard herself making this ludicrous statement, the penny still didn't drop. My friend, who'd lived in Europe for years, was speechless. In my view, and as this example surely goes to show, Ameri(cano)centrism is a particularly deep-rooted form of ethnocentrism, which differs so substantially from its (say) French, Turkish or Chinese equivalents that it does deserve an article of its own. If anything, it's an offshoot of Anglocentrism, for Brits (of whom I used to be one) also tend to suffer from it - but Irish, Canadians and South Africans (who are familiar with other languages in their own countries) far less.213.127.210.95 (talk) 16:01, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

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US-centrism instead? Even the name is 'Americentric'

Considering this relates specifically to the United States of America, as opposed to America in its continental sense (North or South), its pretty ironic that the term 'Americentrism' effectively co-opts America as synonymous with the US. US-centrism would, in my opinion, be a better term, don't you think? Is there consensus that this is the preferred expression, or can we vote for a change? 149.5.89.234 (talk) 15:36, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

It would be better, but if you do a quick search on the internet, "Americentrism" seems to be the most used term. SillyBilly3 (talk) 12:50, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Is Salon a credible sources?

On the section of "In the media", some editor use salon as source--Someone97816 (talk) 10:13, 7 January 2022 (UTC)