The Beauty of Diversity

Emma Hausbeck ’15

Staff Writer

What does it mean to be an American? Does it mean wearing a ten gallon hat and riding horses under the big open sky or sitting down to a turkey dinner with the entire extended family? Or could it possibly mean something entirely different?

The Coca-Cola Company had a pretty good idea of what it really means to be an American and made the bold decision to showcase it in a commercial during the 48th SuperBowl this past Sunday, what could be more American than that? Now if you didn’t see the ad it was a montage of many different Americans from different states, and more importantly from different backgrounds. The video was set to a collaboration between seven different girls singing “America the Beautiful” in seven different languages including English, Spanish, and Mandarin. It was a simple yet beautiful harmony that effectively drove Coke’s message home that being a diverse nation makes us a great one. Unfortunately, some close-minded viewers disagreed with this statement. Their main reason? The song wasn’t sung entirely in English. Furthermore, critics were opposed to the brief clip of what looks like a gay couple out skating with their daughter. What many would believe to be an enriching experience, opponents find disgusting and otherwise “un-American”.

The controversy took to the popular social website Twitter where it grew to epic proportions. Hateful messages like “WTF?” @CocaCola has America the Beautiful being sung in different languages in a #SuperBowl commercial? We speak ENGLISH here, IDIOTS” and “English or GTFO” (Poniewozik) ran wild. What was intended to be an example of America’s unity became a vent for social corruption and hateful behavior. As Americans, we are meant to embrace our differences and come together as one, not to discourage change and diversity like a deadly disease.

What it means to be an American can be summed up in the last lyric from “America the Beautiful”: “And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea”. This line clearly states the very essence of what it means to be an American; that skin color, religion and language do not define us, but rather our passion for freedom.