An anchorwoman for Atlanta’s WXIA television station held little back in going after the right-wing rage over Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl commercial this past Sunday. The commercial featured “America the Beautiful” sung in various languages along with images of America’s great diversity — people of different ethnicities and backgrounds, including a gay family. Here’s some of what anchor Brenda Wood had to say in response:
“The fact that people are outraged over this ad is outrageous itself. People indignant that others would have the audacity to sing ‘American the Beautiful’ in a language other than English? When America was built on opening its arms to the world?
The quote on the Statue of Liberty doesn’t say: ‘Give me your English-speaking-only, Christian-believing, heterosexual masses.’ It says: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses … tempest-tossed.’
Have we forgotten that every one of us Americans, except for Native Americans, are descendants of foreigners? That the English language is from England?
What makes America different from everywhere else is that we are a melting pot. We are not homogenous. It is our diversity that built this country. How dare there be indignation over the very thing that makes us great.
And why not honor the beauty of that in song? What’s so sacrosanct about this song that it can’t be song in other languages, by other ethnicities, by those of diverse religions and diverse lifestyles?”
Thanks for posting this, Dan. I had no idea that bigots would object to even the simple celebration of American diversity depicted in this commercial. I also appreciate that a television anchor such as Brenda Wood would have the courage to explain to the bigots how wrong and mean-spirited they are to object to the multiculturalism expressed by the Coca-Cola ad. She joins a small group of individuals in this country who aren’t going to allow bigots, racists, sectarians, misogynists, homophobes, and similar irrational and ignorant people to dominate our culture and frame our society’s ethical norms in their favor by our silence. Brenda Woods, I, and others don’t accept the radical, fundamentalist, right-wing Fox News version of American society and will publicly speak out against it. I urge others to do the same.
Thanks also, Dan; from here in the hinterlands, Orange County, California, proclaimed by some as “The Most Republican County in America” and proud of all get-out of its KKK founders and heritage.
Ms. Wood nailed the faux outrage (from Faux News) and precisely deflated their hot-air balloon of indignation by pointing out that we are a mixed people (even Native Americans came from Asia, it seems) and stronger for it.
Speaking as a professional anthropologist, John MacMurray is absolutely correct (Solutrean Theory possible but unlikely for now).
I think it interesting that people who claim that Adam and Eve were the first two people, thus making all human beings of all ethnicities and races members in good standing of the same human family, could behave like the people who opposed this commercial. They may claim Christianity as their faith, but I see nothing of Jesus Christ in this sort of response to the commercial. From a truly Christian standpoint, this response was just plain wrong and fundamentally and deeply evil in nature. Those who claim to be Christians should be ashamed of themselves for embarrassing the Holy Trinity in this way.
Wait a minute, if Adam and Eve had only two sons and no daughters,…
Most people don’t read further than the Cain episode. First thing afterwards is that A&E have a next son, Seth (no talk about him heaving the head of a jackal though 😉 )
What is clear is that the boys would have had to wait a while for sisters to procreate with (no incest rules applying obviously). And then there are those mysterious ‘sons of God’ and the Nephilim (mentioned nowhere else). A rather effed up situation (in both senses of the word 😉 ).
Wow! I definitely need to read more. Thank for the info, Hartmut.
The best part of this flap is that Katherine Lee Bates, the author of the words to “America the Beautiful” was a lesbian, pro-immigrant, Christian socialist.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/america-the-beautiful_b_4728976.html
“The author of this iconic anthem of American patriotism was Katherine Lee Bates. In a brilliant lampoon of the backlash against the Coke commercial, Stephen Colbert pointed out that Bates was a lesbian. He could also have added that she was also a Christian socialist and an ardent foe of American imperialism.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/america-the-beautiful_b_4728976.html
What does she mean all of us except native Americans are descendents of foreigners?
Our species is not native to this continent. Even American Indians are descendents of foreigners, albeit they immigrated here some 10-13k years before western Europeans did.
The continent had no human inhabitants for its first 200 million years or so. We’re all newcomers in the larger scheme of geographical time scales.
“America” is not even an English “word” and Christopher Columbus was Italian or Spanish depending on who wrote history and….. Jesus did not have blonde hair and blue eyes, like many images if him in the USA depict him as.