Bi-Culturalism and the Right

Ken AshfordImmigration and XenophobiaLeave a Comment

It was just last week when RNC chairman Reince Priebus threw a huge fit of fake outrage and got MSNBC president Phil Griffin to apologize and fire a staffer who tweeted "maybe the rightwing will hate it" about that new Cheerios ad with a biracial family. How dare MSNBC imply that the right wing doesn't support bi-culturalism, screamed the wounded right wing.

Flash forward to the Super Bowl, and guess what happens?

The right wing flew into frenzy of racism and nativism about a different Super Bowl ad — the Coca-Cola ad featuring a multi-racial cast singing "America the Beautiful" in many different languages:

The multilingual aspect of the ad drew fire from former Republican Congressman Allen West, who wrote a blog post saying, "If we cannot be proud enough as a country to sing "American the Beautiful" in English in a commercial during the Super Bowl, by a company as American as they come — doggone we are on the road to perdition."

Conservative columnist and Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes tweeted his dislike of the ad, writing, "So was Coca-Cola saying America is beautiful because new immigrants don't learn to speak English?"

For awhile, the hashtag #BoycottCoke trended on Twitter, with some calling for a boycott of the soft drink for daring to desecrate the national anthem by using foreign languages. (It should be pointed out for anyone confused on the matter, that America's actual national anthem is "The Star-Spangled Banner.")

 

And there are gay people in it, too!  (Never mind the fact that America the Beautiful's lyrics were written by a gay woman).

Paul Whitefield atThe Los Angeles Times had the best response:

Frankly, I’m getting more than a little tired of hearing from angry America. I’m also less than fond of knee-jerk America. And when you combine the two with the Internet, you too often get stupid America, which is really annoying.

Face facts, folks: A lot of people came here not speaking English. We like to think that they all quickly learned it. Some did; many didn’t. But, their kids did. And their kids speak English; many probably couldn’t speak the grandparents’ native language if they wanted to.

So get a grip: We’re not being overrun by hordes of Spanish speakers. Just like always, we’re growing a new crop of Americans. They are enriching the country. They are working hard, paying taxes. And they will create future Nobel Prize winners and future presidents and future titans of industry.

In short, they will make America beautiful.