As someone with a travel/international-friendly blog, I felt the need to respond to the Coke Super Bowl ad controversy.

 

It all goes back to the melting pot vs salad bowl of culture. I like to believe everyone's foods, movies, music, languages can all exist. Where would the Oscar's have been a couple years ago without "Slumdog Millionaire"? Where would Lark Street in Albany be without choices of Chinese, Thai, Mexican, and Indian all within a few blocks of each other?

People get frustrated and angry at things they don't understand. Language can be a barrier. But sometimes you have to let your guard down and appreciate all human life, whether you fully understand it or not.

 

 

 

Coke, while based in the U.S. (Atlanta to be exact) and touted as a very American drink, has had an international presence for a long time. They serve dozens of countries and the commercial depicted that diversity well.

I thought it was a beautiful commercial. I'm sure my grandparents who immigrated from Italy would have thought so, too.

Know what the whole world should be annoyed about? The fact that the U.S. can be so ethnocentric that we consider single nation competitions like the Super Bowl a "world championship".

 

I'll get off my Global-Studies-minor soapbox now. I do love the U.S. and I love being from NY (especially Troy, NY). I just think that sometimes our nation of 313 million people forgets that there are 5.7 billion non-Americans out there, too.