Crown thy good with brotherhood

The moment I saw Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl commercial, I knew it would ruffle feathers from sea to shining sea.

Not only did it feature seven different languages — English, Spanish, Tagalog (spoken in the Philippines), French, Hindi, Hebrew and Keres (spoken by Pueblo Native Americans) — it highlighted multiple religions and a gay couple, presumably with their daughter.

Many found such a display of brotherhood offensive and ridiculous, evidenced by a litany of infuriated tweets declaring that “we speak English in America” and that there was nothing beautiful about the message of diversity.

Of course, let us not forget that the advertisement was, at its core, a brilliant marketing move. Coke has joined the flocks of companies and organizations who have begun publicly taking sides on national and political issues.

When the Indiana State House of Representatives was debating HJR 3, a “proposed amendment that would alter the Indiana Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman,” the @FreedomIndiana Twitter account was publishing the names and logos of various Indiana businesses that opposted the ammendment.

Namely, the Indianapolis Star, Area 10, Borshoff, and the Indy Bar
Association.

I was shocked by the number of people in my Facebook and Twitter feed who apparently are, firstly, opposed to compassion and fellowship and, secondly, under the
impression that English is our national language.

It’s not.

Though English is spoken by a strong majority of Americans — 73 percent — the other languages in the commercial are relatively well-represented within the population as well.

Spanish is spoken by 35 million Americans, or 11 percent; Tagalog and French are spoken by 1.5 million Americans each; and Hindi, Hebrew and Keres account for the primary languages of about .2 percent of Americans.

Only 27 states have declared English as their primary language. Five of those have secondary official languages like Spanish and Hawaiian.

Even if all of those statistics weren’t true, resenting Coke for glorifying racial, cultural, linguistic, religious, sexual and socioeconomic diversity is both offensively mean-spirited and blatantly contradictory to the core message of a song so beautifully representative of our nation.

The ludicrous reaction by far too many becomes laughable in light of the lesser-known second verse: “O beautiful for pilgrim feet / Whose stern impassioned stress / A thoroughfare of freedom beat / Across the wilderness ... ”
“America the Beautiful” is about immigration. Pilgrim feet made America a haven of liberty and justice for all.

It’s not that American businesses getting involved in national issues is a recent occurrence.

But in our increasingly connected world, seeing companies put themselves and their consumers on the right side of history — even if the true goal is increased sales — is encouraging.

It doesn’t matter why Coke ran the ad. They were right. America is beautiful because of its diversity, not in spite of it.

Anyone who has a problem with crowning our good with brotherhood needs a far greater paradigm shift than one commercial can provide.


­— sbkissel@indiana.edu
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