Coke is right about America

At this point, it’s hard to imagine responding to close-minded bigots would do anybody much good.

After all, the only real winners seem to be the ones who yell the loudest.

But no matter how loudly the people who disagreed with the Coca-Cola advertisement — featuring multiple languages and gay people — during the Super Bowl yell, they will never be right.

The ad in question features people of different ethnicities singing “America the Beautiful” in numerous languages, English only being one of them. It also features two men who appear to be loving fathers to a young daughter, the three of them having fun at a skating rink.

First things first.

This whole mentality of “We speak English in America, damn it” needs to go away.
Because, actually, we speak many languages.In fact, more than 37 million Americans older than the age of five speak Spanish at home.

And 2.8 million of those 37 million aren’t even Latino.

Another 2.8 million Americans speak Chinese at home, 2.2 million speak Hindi, Urdu or other Indic languages and 2.1 million speak French.

In short, we don’t just speak English in America, damn it.

This is one of the many reasons English is not our national language. We aren’t just English speakers, nor should we settle to only speak English. In a world that progresses and becomes smaller in the time it used to take to cross oceans by ship, our scope becomes more limited by only possessing the ability of speaking one language.

It only shows how ignorant and close-minded Americans are to foreign languages when we get up in arms about, of all things, a harmless Coca-Cola advertisement.

Now, on to the second point of contention.

It’s no surprise people are upset because of the depiction of a seemingly homosexual couple, let alone a homosexual couple looking happy with a daughter.

A somewhat similar ad from Amazon featured a man and woman bonding while their husbands were off getting them drinks. The intention was sweet, but it came off as playing homosexuality as a punch line.

In this Super Bowl Coca-Cola ad, we simply have two men and a young girl enjoying themselves.

There’s no giant, neon sign that says, “Here’s two gay men raising a daughter. Look at us pushing our gay agenda on the young minds of America.” They’re not unstitching the fabric of America. They aren’t here to ruin the sanctity of your marriage. They’re just here for the skating and the Coca-Cola.

So remember, kids.

You have to keep your eyes and your mind open to see that America is beautiful, regardless of what the naysayers believe.

­— wdmcdona@indiana.edu