Culture shock (of approximately 10 million volts)

Today in class, we were discussing what is meant by the term "violence." One girl accused Americans of "violently" going in and taking away the culture of India by diverting customer support and industry there. Not the US or the government. Americans. I had my objections to raise about that, but unfortunately, the discussion had to move on.

The conversation after class boiled down to America's apparent tendency to kill other cultures. I mentioned that yes, I'm an American and I'm going around wielding my cultural knife. Someone suggested a scythe as a better weapon, and someone else mentioned the grim reaper...this is the image it sparked in my mind, put onto paper (sorry for the crappy quality, but I only have a webcam, not a scanner).



Then, for fun, I googled "America as grim reaper" and found this (keep in mind mine came first in my thought process, thankyouverymuch):



I really can't decide if that's a blind declaration of patriotism or a political comment. It's actually a fairly insightful idea, but in my book, people who get tattoos of grim reapers aren't likely permanently etch insightful observations on their skin--"fuck the institution" ideals maybe, yes, but not ones that require a lot of thought.

And while this was all supposed to relate to culture, I wonder if the grim reaper should be holding a dollar bill and beckoning at the rest of the world.