I know it has been a couple of days after the so called game.  But I have been seeing so many people on various forums bitch and moan about the Coke commercial with various races singing in their native languages.  I guess for me I was born and raised here, I am not white, I was exposed to hearing many different languages spoken around me, I have many friends of various races.  I still don't see why some would be offended.  Granted, when I first seen it, I had a feeling some were going to get their panties twisted.  What ever the case, the one who thought of going this route IMO was a genius.  That person knew some would get their panties twisted and give it that negative buzz that people keep talking about.  Sort of similar to the Miley Cyrus performance on that awards show.  The buzz is free advertising.  The way I see it, it worked flawlessly.

I am curious on everyone's opinion here.  I am curious is it the way we grew up with various races that make this commercial acceptable?  Or is it just me, and have more important things to worry about?

Coke has pursued the "one happy world" theme for as long as I can remember.  Everybody, jump in, you know the words...
"I'd like to teach the world to sing
in perfect harmony
I'd like to buy the world a Coke
and keep it company"

I learned that song when I was single-digit age.  The commercial was breathtaking, thousands of people singing along together happily.  And this was pre-computer, so there were actually thousands of people. 

Coke also has long used hegemonic tactics in their marketing.  They just reach out and wrap themselves around a culture, suddenly making it "ok" and mainstream.  I wrote a paper on that in grad school.

So, on the one hand, business as usual.  On the other hand, marketing or not, what a nice sentiment.

And I have better things to worry about.

It's not bad... but I can see why it is controversial.

I know this may be controversial, but they should have kept it in English.  Othewise, it portrays America like the tower of babel where people do not understand each other.   And you know what happened in the story of Babel.

I think it would be awesome if they used the "One Happy World" theme song.

Would have even been a twist on nostalgia.

But the song choice was wrong.
Americans should be able to speak American. ( at some point )
They could have had everyone sing it in their own accent. That would be fine. Cool even.

This brings up a whole new topic of when did race start to come before nationality ?
Used to be:
American of Japanese Ancestry
American of Chinese Ancestry
American of Portuguese Ancestry.
American of Irish Ancestry
American of Whatever ancestry.

Now it's:
Asian American
Mexican American
African American
Whatever American

American should always come first.
IMO.

I think it would be awesome if they used the "One Happy World" theme song.

Would have even been a twist on nostalgia.

But the song choice was wrong.
Americans should be able to speak American. ( at some point )
They could have had everyone sing it in their own accent. That would be fine. Cool even.

This brings up a whole new topic of when did race start to come before nationality ?
Used to be:
American of Japanese Ancestry
American of Chinese Ancestry
American of Portuguese Ancestry.
American of Irish Ancestry
American of Whatever ancestry.

Now it's:
Asian American
Mexican American
African American
Whatever American

American should always come first.
IMO.

Hmmm, interesting aieahound. Never thought of it this way, I agree completely; we are Americans first.

Damn, I love a good race war !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans

Americans, or American people, are citizens of the United States of America. It also includes certain individuals who are considered to be nationals of the United States of America.[38] The country is home to people of different national origins. As a result, Americans do not equate their nationality with ethnicity, but with citizenship.[39] With the exception of the Native American population, generally all Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries. 

    As I was born and raised in the "Big City",  prejudice was a normal daily thing.
Hell, just my Filipino looks made me a taco bender, and that was the nice version.
If you weren't white, you were black.

    I moved to Hawaii and raised my kids here and I remember the time my son came home and asked me why some kids called his friend a n1@@er and had picked on him.
He was totally confused. 

    It was one of the proudest days of my life when I had to explain to him about race and prejudice and I knew I raised him right!

   I'm Filipino, French and Belgian and on Sunday, you would have  found our household standing at attention with our hands over our hearts at the singing of our National Anthem . 

Any "Native Americans" out there ?

http://www.100percentfedup.com/613-exposed-coca-cola-s-super-bowl-commercial-was-a-stealth-push-for-amnesty-by-its-muslim-ceo

Coca Cola has been on a major amnesty push for at least a year in the hopes that it can obtain cheap labor. And because its CEO Muhtar Kent is aMuslim who was raised in places like Iran and Indonesia, perhaps for even more sinister reasons. Regardless, this push makes it very clear that the Super Bowl ad was 100% political, designed to influence public opinion, propagandizing the people in favor of immigration ahead of the coming amnesty battle in congress. In the military, this is called a PSYOP (psychological operation). Muhtar is engaging in the amnesty war just like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is. And I’d be curious to know just how much of his salary and Coke’s profits go to Muslim “charities” that are really fronts for terrorist organizations, as most Muslim “charities” are.

Background: Coca-Cola Super Bowl Ad Stirs Controversy With Multilingual Singing Of ‘America The Beautiful’

Related - WATCH – Beck: Coke’s Super Bowl Ad Was An Effort To Demonize Those Opposed To Progressive Immigration Agenda As ‘Racist’

February 28, 2013 editorial in USA Today by Coca Cola CEO Muhtar Kent, entitled “Immigration Reform Good For Business”: Though I’m not an immigrant, I’ve lived certain aspects of the immigrant experience. I was born in New York City when my father was serving as Turkey’s consul general. As he assumed other diplomatic posts, our family lived in Thailand, Poland, Iran, India and elsewhere. In 1978, I returned to New York with a British university degree and a birth certificate in my pocket. A newspaper help-wanted ad led me to a job riding red route trucks and delivering the beverages of The Coca-Cola Co. to retail outlets. I immediately fell in love with the company and my birthplace. I chose to make my life in this country. Being a U.S. citizen by birth, I was fortunate to have that choice.

Many others would like to have the same choice. But they can’t come to America unless they are willing to wade through a daunting bureaucracy, deal with outdated regulations or, when all else fails, enter the shadowy world of undocumented status.

I was lucky

That’s one reason I support immigration reform. As a first-generation American, I know firsthand the blessings of living in this country. As a business leader, I also know we need to make it easier for committed, highly skilled people to make their lives and livelihoods here. Immigration is an essential part of the growth calculus for this great country.

Nearly half of Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or their children. Last year, three-quarters of patents coming out of our 10 top research universities were granted to immigrants.

As Washington grapples with much-needed immigration reform, my hope is that our leaders focus on creating a modern system with rational laws and regulations, strong border controls, greater opportunities for skilled foreign-born professionals and a clear way forward for undocumented workers — a potential route to U.S. citizenship that bears all the rights, responsibilities and obligations of that coveted status.

A half-century ago, a young chemist came to this country from his native Cuba with little more than $40 and an American college degree. In time, Roberto Goizueta would become chairman of The Coca-Cola Co., creating thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars of shareholder value. Today, we should do everything we can to welcome and retain young people like Roberto.

As we do, we should remember that immigration is not just an American issue. On the contrary, it is a global issue. But the U.S. clearly has a leadership opportunity to promote immigration reform beyond our own borders. For the sake of our economy and the global economy, this leadership cannot come fast enough.

At Coca-Cola, for instance, we operate as a local business in 200-plus countries, hiring, manufacturing and distributing locally. And yet we struggle with the often byzantine processes involved in moving our leaders and their families across borders.

The cost to our business, our people and global business everywhere is immediate — and acute. For those countries erecting barriers, however, the cost is even greater as they fail to gain the talent and know-how of experienced workers.

Free ideas, free people

The problem, at its core, is protectionism. Though it might be appealing to think a nation can protect its citizens from competition, the healthiest and most dynamic national economies tend to be those that embrace free ideas, free trade and free people. Keep reading

Excerpted from Huffington Post article listing top 10 CEOs backing “immigration reform”:

Muhtar Kent, chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Co.

Muhtar Kent explained why he thinks immigration reform is good for business in an op-ed he wrote in February. He insisted that “we need to make it easier for committed, highly skilled people to make their lives and livelihoods here.” He also highlighted the economic growth that immigrants generate in the U.S., noting that nearly half of Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or their children.

http://patdollard.com/2014/02/flashback-2013-coca-cola-ceo-writes-op-ed-pushing-immigration-reform/

http://joeforamerica.com/2014/02/coca-cola-ad-super-bowl-americans-brand-hm/

I’m watching the Super Bowl, looks like good defense (Seattle) is trouncing good offense (Denver) when a Coca Cola commercial came on and it started rather patriotically with the words of “America the Beautiful.”

Follow Joe For America on Facebook!

Then the words went from English to languages I didn’t recognize. Now, I know the politically correct thing is to foster multiculturalism — working really well in Europe — but we should remember the words spoken by President Teddy Roosevelt;

    Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.”

    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 man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn’t doing his part as 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 room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile.

    We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

    Read rest here H/T allenbwest.com


Read more at http://joeforamerica.com/2014/02/coca-cola-ad-super-bowl-americans-brand-hm/#WTbQHmZ3w1Hh1hdC.99

Interesting about the Coke Company CEO. 

Muhtar Kent became CEO in 1995.  In the mid to late 80s, I was in Saudi Arabia, and we were only able to find Pepsi products, no Coke at all.  The reason given was the Coke CEO was JEWISH!

My, how things do change!!   

There were many international brands forbidden in the kingdom because of their Jewish owners or chairs, Sears being another one.

.

+1. Assimilate or leave.

Learn the language.

That is interesting about the Coke CEO. This is what the commercial reminded me of when I first saw it.

I thought the commercial was great, including all the languages. Everyone has to remember that we are a country  of immigrants. I grew up in a very white conservative (for Washington)area that pretty much only spoke english. I remeber going into middle school and there were ESL students who spoke Ukrainin/Russian since they had recently moved from that country. I thought it was awsome and was actually jealous.

.

"American" isn't a culture. What we have is a culture of consumerism. Americans worship their kids/idealize youth, send their old folks to hospitals to die, judge their own intrinsic value on the accumulation of 'stuff', consider 240 years ago to be ancient history, and only learn geography at the pace of our latest military actions. People insist this is the greatest country in the world, but most of them never went anywhere else to find out if it's true. Sure lots of immigrants come here to jump on the gravy train that comes with having temporary claim to the world reserve currency, but when you take away the 'accumulation of stuff' and get down to what really makes this country great it's a lot harder to pin down what culture really means here.

For me what makes this place great goes back to freedom of religion that the colonists originally sought, but in this case it's more like freedom from religion (including religious patriotism). That doesn't really define the culture, but it gives everyone a choice to the kind of culture they want to participate in. Think about all the people who come to Hawaii and can't handle because they don't understand the mix here. They want everyone to fall into their expectations of what a US state should be like, and complain that it's too ethnic here. How does that make you feel?

"American" isn't a culture. What we have is a culture of consumerism. Americans worship their kids/idealize youth, send their old folks to hospitals to die, judge their own intrinsic value on the accumulation of 'stuff', consider 240 years ago to be ancient history, and only learn geography at the pace of our latest military actions. People insist this is the greatest country in the world, but most of them never went anywhere else to find out if it's true. Sure lots of immigrants come here to jump on the gravy train that comes with having temporary claim to the world reserve currency, but when you take away the 'accumulation of stuff' and get down to what really makes this country great it's a lot harder to pin down what culture really means here.

For me what makes this place great goes back to freedom of religion that the colonists originally sought, but in this case it's more like freedom from religion (including religious patriotism). That doesn't really define the culture, but it gives everyone a choice to the kind of culture they want to participate in. Think about all the people who come to Hawaii and can't handle because they don't understand the mix here. They want everyone to fall into their expectations of what a US state should be like, and complain that it's too ethnic here. How does that make you feel?

Reading through this comment, I see one underlying concept:  you are too spoiled to recognize what the strength of this nation really is.

Are we having people lined up and shot for their political views?
Are we forcing people in low wage "classes" to remain there, with no opportunity to ever break from their class into a better standard of living, simply because they were born in to that specific class?
Are we choosing national  leaders through military coup or civil war?
Do we have to show passports to enter/leave states within our nation?
Are we waiting in long lines outdoors daily to purchase the necessities we need for ourselves and our families? (Black Friday and iPhone releases excepted!)
Is education forbidden for the poor?  for women?
Are Catholics being burned alive for being Christians?
Are mass graves being dug to shoot and bury Muslim/Non-Muslim communities in the name of "ethnic cleansing?"
Are people being beheaded for their political party loyalties?

Regardless of how bad the country is, and what faults you find with this group or that, we are still the best nation on Earth when it comes to human rights, Constitutional protection of the individual, and guardian of the ideal of human equality..

The next time you sit down with a cool drink next to you, typing on a PC in a safe, secure, comfortable chair, thinking about the day to day minutia that makes up your "horrible life", try to imagine how far this nation has come in under 2 1/2 centuries.

Is the US perfect?  Not even close.  In fact, the US has the worst form of government on the planet .... with the exception of every other government on the planet! 

Please don't make the mistake of equating the people of American with the Government.  And don't play into the hands of the media who likes to pigeon hole people with labels.  For example, if you believe the Tea Party is racist, that the Republicans are just a bunch of rich, old, white men, that the South has nothing but inbred, backwards rednecks, and all Liberals are anti-Constitutional Socialists, then you've been naive enough to fall into their trap.

.

I am a Haole born and raised in Hawaii, but have been all across the US and parts of Asia. ( still need to get to Europe )
Cultural diversity is the backbone of Modern America.
It's what the freedom is all about IMO.
It's what makes travelling this great country so enjoyable.

Hvybarrels, sounds like you're describing Kalifornia, not America.

In response to Q:
I love the Pidgin culture of Hawaii.
I don't mean the language, I mean the mixing of Cultures - Melting Pot.
Everyone knows Hauoli Makahiki Hou and Gung Hee Fat Choy ( everyone used to love fireworks )
Everyone knows how to Bon Dance.
Not everyone eats Bagoong but they know what it is.
Everyone eats kalua pig, lomi salmon, saimin, kim chee, lumpia, cake noodle, manapua ( char siu bao ), malasadas, pasteles and steak. 
It's a unique mix of cultural diversity that has been embraced by all races, but one nationality.
I hope Hawaii never loses it's uniqueness.

Continuing my rant:

My daughter and I had a conversation the other night in which she had a school question about culture.
She said she had no answer as she had no pre-dominant culture other than her family ( her mother is Chinese, so she's hapa )
I told her her culture is American. She asked what is American culture.
I responded Cosmopolitan. ( look it up, it's a cool word )

I had an assignment in grade school to report on our nationality for May Day.
All the other kids were doing their ethnicities.
I asked my dad what our nationality is and he said American.
I explained about the other kids and ethnicity, and he replied:
"Just tell them your first generation American. There needs to be a first generation. "

Well I'm done with my rant.
 

Bottom line, we all speak American and can communicate and have accepted the intent of the Constitution.
Liberty.
Still say the commercial should have been in accents but in english, if they wanted to show diversity, or been the "one Happy World" song.

PS:
I totally agree with the Teddy Roosevelt quote. ( or is it Rosevelt  )