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Your opinion on Coke's version of America The Beautiful? [W:1014]

Do You like this version of "America The Beautiful?"

  • Total voters
    104
Come on smarties! Address post #550.
 
We are no longer a melting pot. We are more like raspberry vinaigrette. If you let us sit, we separate. We have also become an arm of El Programa 3 x 1 Para Migrantes which assists Mexicans living abroad in sending money back home for social welfare projects. Our state department advertises our social programs on Mexican TV.

Having said that, I was not a fan of the Coke Super Bowl ad. I told Coke. This was their form letter in response.

Thank you for your email and your loyalty to Coca-Cola over the years, . We greatly value your business and appreciate hearing from you.

“It’s Beautiful” was created to celebrate Coke moments among all Americans who together enjoy ice cold, refreshing Coke. For centuries America has opened its arms to people of many countries who have helped to build this great nation. “It’s Beautiful” provides a snapshot of the real lives of Americans representing diverse ethnicities, religions, races and families, all found in the United States. All those featured in the ad are Americans and “America The Beautiful” was sung by bilingual American young women.

We believe “It’s Beautiful” is a great example of the magic that makes our country so special, and a powerful message that spreads optimism, promotes inclusion and celebrates humanity – values that are core to Coca-Cola.

You can find out more about our ad by going to Journey. I really appreciate your feedback and hope this will keep you as a valued customer of ours. We appreciate your interest in our Company.

Kalee J
Industry and Consumer Affairs
The Coca-Cola Company

Please use the record number below should you have additional questions.

{ticketno:[8003197872]}
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More on construction site accidents and other related issues due to inability to communicate.

The solution, many people say, is to train everyone in a common language. ''We just view that as a primary safety consideration,'' said Paul Fernandes, spokesman for the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, noting that the union's apprenticeship programs have an English-as-a-second-language component. ''Ordinarily, everyone should have to be able to speak English on the job, because if even one person doesn't, that could be affecting dozens or hundreds of people.''

Language barriers on the job are an even bigger problem among day laborers, nonunionized workers who are less likely to speak English, Mr. Fernandes added.

If English is not a common tongue, a second line of defense is to have an interpreter on hand, construction veterans say. Failing that, said Jim Pakenham, safety director for Bovis Lend Lease, a large national construction company, in emergency situations, ''You use sign language.''

Even so, many foreign-born workers are unaware of safety hazards and their right to safe working conditions. Fearful over their job security or possibly tenuous immigration status, they are less likely to complain and more likely to be in danger, worker advocates said.

One of the largest threats to the safety of non-English-speaking employees is their failure to report hazards, said Laurie Kellogg, training representative for the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. ''There's fear of talking to the boss, and the complete lack of awareness that there are safety rules,'' she said. ''Then you'll have people doing dangerous things because their supervisor told them to.''
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joko104 said:
The level of which people become the most simpleton sheep when they go into the partisan slogans crap is amazing.

This is "ENGLISH"

smp_oldenglish.gif


You and others are taking a kindergarten view of language and communication is the most simplistic loyalty to what? Like Hatuey you need Latinos to be a separated from others so you can declare you are fighting against their oppression, while often making your hatred of Latinos known in other ways?
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I think that because they are SO full of hatred, that they think everyone is hateful like they are.
 
Hatuey said:
Work efficiently? For whom? Are we a hive mind now? Look, I know that when your post gets picked apart you no longer want to play. However, the fact remains that people use English as they need to. Millions of people get by every single day with the same methods of communication and networking others have used. That's not going to change by imposing laws on language. What are we? Quebec? You never answered though: How many languages do you speak other than English? If it's only English, it would explain why you have such a limited vocabulary.
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Address post #550 then. What is your solution?
 
X Factor said:
Do you only respect those who agree with you? Because that's how it appears.
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This is par for the course with this poster. I haven't really seen him be respectful towards any fellow posters.
 
ChrisL said:
What is it that you people cannot understand about what WE are saying? We are not saying we don't want immigrants or that we dislike their culture or their languages.

Now I'm going to say this again, so pay CLOSE attention to the words here: The problem here is that these immigrants (illegals who cannot speak english), ADD to our poverty level. They are hurting THEMSELVES too. We need to be able to COMMUNICATE with one another in order to make things work. If we cannot communicate with one another, that is going to lead to a lot of misunderstanding and DANGEROUS SITUATIONS.

Do you get it now? Or are you all still going to cry bigotry because that's all you can see in everything?
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That's fine and perfectly understandable, Chris. I don't think anyone is really disputing that. At least, I haven't seen anyone in this thread advocating for a nation where everyone speaks whatever language they feel like speaking and where there isn't one or more (believe it or not, countless countries make that work) common language(s). I think what many people don't understand is the disproportionate reaction to a harmless and quite positive ad. The problems you raise are real and it would be foolish to ignore them, but is that what the ad in the OP is supposed to be about? Or is the message a much simpler one: America is beautiful no matter what language you say it in?
 
"If English was good enough for Jesus when he wrote the Bible it should be good enough for coke." ~Nobody said that.
 
Arcana XV said:
That's fine and perfectly understandable, Chris. I don't think anyone is really disputing that. At least, I haven't seen anyone in this thread advocating for a nation where everyone speaks whatever language they feel like speaking and where there isn't one or more (believe it or not, countless countries make that work) common language(s). I think what many people don't understand is the disproportionate reaction to a harmless and quite positive ad. The problems you raise are real and it would be foolish to ignore them, but is that what the ad in the OP is supposed to be about? Or is the message a much simpler one: America is beautiful no matter what language you say it in?
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Well I agree with your analysis of the commercial, but obviously this conversation has gone beyond just talking about the meaning of the commercial at this point.
 
sawdust said:
We are no longer a melting pot. We are more like raspberry vinaigrette. If you let us sit, we separate. We have also become an arm of El Programa 3 x 1 Para Migrantes which assists Mexicans living abroad in sending money back home for social welfare projects. Our state department advertises our social programs on Mexican TV.

Having said that, I was not a fan of the Coke Super Bowl ad. I told Coke. This was their form letter in response.
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“America The Beautiful” was sung by bilingual American young women.

Well, there you go. Case closed. American and bilingual. Does anyone have a problem with this?
 
My opinion on it is that I have a really hard time seeing how anyone can be offended by it or hate it. I can understand just not liking it or not having an opinion on it, but hating it because people spoke different languages? Good lord what have we become. If people want to sing the glory of our country then I could care less what language it's in. Immigrants learning to speak english is a completely different issue altogether from this commercial.
 
joko104 said:
Your view of what language and communications is nonsensical. Nor do I believe you know Spanish and French. You think it would be cool to know both so claim that you do.
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Cuando quieras hablamos en cualquiera de los dos por Skype. :)

Mostly, you apparently have NO clue that languages are to communicate with other people. You WANT people put into ethic and racial categories and what them kept separate - "but equal - by language. How else could you goal of preserving bigotries succeed?

You logic is the logic of why it was a criminal offense to teach slaves to read English. You do not want inferior people to you - meaning racially and ethnically - to be part of your society.
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Joko, there are no other languages remember? There is only English multilingualism. C'est dommage que tu sois si con que ça.
 
Arcana XV said:
“America The Beautiful” was sung by bilingual American young women.

Well, there you go. Case closed. American and bilingual. Does anyone have a problem with this?
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The problem with the song wasn't the knowledge the women on the video had. You couldn't see that. The problem is that the song is uniquely American and each of the singers displayed their pride in their country of origin over the fact that they were American. Had they sung in English it would have reinforced the fact that we are a melting pot made up of people from all over the world. The message the video sent was that assimilating into our culture was secondary to their country of origin. That pissed a lot of people off.
 
My only issue with the commercial itself was that it was too corny for a Super Bowl (I felt that way about several commercials though). When I'm watching the Super Bowl, I don't want to be made to feel like I want to cry or all sentimental. I want to laugh and be entertained. So that's why the commercial sucked IMO.
 
ChrisL said:
Address post #550 then. What is your solution?
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Solution to what? A false dichotomy that only exists in your mind? Immigrants are hurting themselves by not speaking English? Hm. Better run and tell the millions of them who survive without it on a daily basis. Again, your false white man's burden dichotomy is just that, false. People survive and make a living daily with or without English. They live in poverty for a first generation? That's not going to change because they speak English. That's going to change once their degrees are recognized, their cultures receive equal treatment as Euro-trash degrees or they are able to integrate society without us putting the boundary of tens of thousands of dollars. As those things don't change, English speaking African engineers who immigrate will still be driving cabs, Caribbean doctors will still be busing tables and Greek kids will be working at their mom & pop restaurants. :shrug:

If you think I'm wrong - I welcome you to understand how accreditation works. You could be the best English speaking Mexican in the world but if you graduated from a noname school in Mexico or anything other than the Tech of Monterrey or maybe UNAM, you're not going to be a doctor in the US or Europe. You can graduate top of your class in Kinshasa's school of engineering and speak English perfectly. Unless you've had some outstanding circumstance, it means jack **** to companies in the US. So again, English? Non-factor. People find work with or without English and do just fine without it. The Italians, Greeks, Polish, Germans, etc did it.
 
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Hatuey said:
Solution to what? A false dichotomy that only exists in your mind? Immigrants are hurting themselves by not speaking English? Hm. Better run and tell the millions of them who survive without it on a daily basis. Again, your false white man's burden dichotomy is just that, false. People survive and make a living daily with or without English. They live in poverty for a first generation? That's not going to change because they speak English. That's going to change once their degrees are recognized, their cultures receive equal treatment as Euro-trash degrees or they are able to integrate society without us putting the boundary of tens of thousands of dollars. As those things don't change, English speaking African engineers who immigrate will still be driving cabs, Caribbean doctors will still be busing tables and Greek kids will be working at their mom & pop restaurants. :shrug:
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:lamo Obviously you cannot address it. Funny! Lol!
 
ChrisL said:
:lamo Obviously you cannot address it. Funny! Lol!
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Do you not understand what a false dichotomy is? I stated the premise of your post was false so there is nothing to address. It asserts that people are "hurt" (whatever that means) when they don't speak English. It's about as nonsensical as saying that not speaking Arabic will hurt your chances of getting a job in the Middle East. It's spoken by somebody with a limited world view. Again Chris, how many languages do you speak and do you have any experience working outside of the US?
 
sawdust said:
The problem with the song wasn't the knowledge the women on the video had. You couldn't see that. The problem is that the song is uniquely American and each of the singers displayed their pride in their country of origin over the fact that they were American. Had they sung in English it would have reinforced the fact that we are a melting pot made up of people from all over the world. The message the video sent was that assimilating into our culture was secondary to their country of origin. That pissed a lot of people off.
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Yeah, I'm really not the best person to identify with these feelings. I speak 7 languages and am a citizen of Canada, Spain, Italy and Switzerland. I love all equally as they are all wonderful countries in their own unique way. I've never been in a situation where I had to chose which one I love more. Maybe if one goes to war with another I'll have to take a side, but other than that I don't foresee any other major issue.
 
ChrisL said:
:lamo Obviously you cannot address it. Funny! Lol!
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Isn't it funny how people like to imply that the US is just such a racist horrible country for believing that speaking the common language is a good thing and yet those same people think we're so mean in not opening our borders? Why would they want to subject immigrants to this horrible, horrible place?
 
Hatuey said:
Do you not understand what a false dichotomy is? I stated the premise of your post was false so there is nothing to address. It asserts that people are "hurt" (whatever that means) when they don't speak English. It's about as nonsensical as saying that not speaking Arabic will hurt your chances of getting a job in the Middle East. It's spoken by somebody with a limited world view. Again Chris, how many languages do you speak and do you have any experience working outside of the US?
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There's nothing false about it. I provided links to OSHA investigations.
 
X Factor said:
Isn't it funny how people like to imply that the US is just such a racist horrible country for believing that speaking the common language is a good thing and yet those same people think we're so mean in not opening our borders? Why would they want to subject immigrants to this horrible, horrible place?
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It's utterly ridiculous. :roll: We do plenty to help them. We offer immigrants English classes for free too. They could also learn online. There is just absolutely no reason to accept this.
 
ChrisL said:
There's nothing false about it. I provided links to OSHA investigations.
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If you're expecting honest responses, you're barking up the wrong tree. I suspect you know that, though. ;)
 
ChrisL said:
There's nothing false about it. I provided links to OSHA investigations.
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Lol, OSHA investigation. *smh* - You posted "information" on a study that shows that there as more immigrants come the US, there will be larger numbers of poor people not that not speaking English makes them poorer. Yes Chris, that's how it works. Immigrants come here? Their degrees are not accepted, they find jobs in other fields whether they like it or not. If they have the ability, they work through school maybe. If they have kids and other things to pay for they don't and end up like the overwhelming majority of immigrants. :shrug:
 
sawdust said:
The problem with the song wasn't the knowledge the women on the video had. You couldn't see that. The problem is that the song is uniquely American and each of the singers displayed their pride in their country of origin over the fact that they were American. Had they sung in English it would have reinforced the fact that we are a melting pot made up of people from all over the world. The message the video sent was that assimilating into our culture was secondary to their country of origin. That pissed a lot of people off.
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Then a lot of people are friggin stupid and reading way too much into a dumb coke commercial.

There's no indication what-so-ever that the people singing in a non-Merikan language where showing any disrespect or animosity towards 'Merika.

There's no inference or sub=plot to suggest they're putting their pride of country of origin OVER 'Merika.

I don't know where people get this stuff from.
 
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