No, we don't. The song is about celebrating America and its exceptionalism and NOT divisive diversity.
What an offensive ad!!! An American patriotic song MUST be sung in English.
Teddy Roosevelt said it best:
"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American . . . There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have no room for but one flag, the American Flag . . . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language . . . and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
- Theodore Roosevelt, From a letter Roosevelt wrote to the American Defense Society
January 3rd, 1919
I don't object to immigrant citizens having their own language and ethnicity. But singing that song or any patriotic song in a foreign tongue dishonors this country. I would have preferred that they sang in English tinged with whatever foreign accent they posses. That would have demonstrated the singer's AND Coke's honoring of America
I'm 1st generation born in this country (German WWII refugees). My grandparents did everything they could to learn English and become US citizens ASAP. My mother's English is so perfectly pronounced she sounds Canadian. Maybe that's why I am so offended, being an American meant and continues to mean so much more to my family.
But here's the part that really chaps me. Coke airs an offensive ad. Conservatives are the only ones smart enough to recognize the offense and the liberal blogosphere immediately demonstrate their own "tolerance" by calling conservatives intolerant, stupid, racist, bigots for taking offense.
Thanks for posting the TR quote. I’d not seen that in a while.
The ad could’ve had the different ethnicities singing in English...with pronounced accents (if they had accents).
Ping!