In 1971, Coca-Cola produced the multicultural (and overly saccharine) “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” commercial and no one said anything.

In 1979, Coca-Cola jerked our heartstrings with the inter-racial Mean Joe Green ad, and in 2009 used Troy Polamalu in the parody hawking Coke Zero.  It wasn’t a big deal.

In 1990, Coke resurrected the 1971 Hilltop ad, this time with the original singers and their families.  Some of us groaned after hearing “that song” again, but no one complained.

In 2014, Coke aired a beautiful multi-lingual version of America the Beautiful.  And the right wing knuckle-draggers went ape shit, saying that singing “our national anthem” in anything but English was a travesty.

What the hell is the matter with you people? First, our national anthem is The Star-Spangled Banner and the tune is To Anacreon in Heaven ,an English drinking song.  Second, Katharine Lee Bates, who wrote America the Beautiful after hiking to the top of Pikes Peak, also wrote a collections of sonnets for her lover, Katharine Coman.

English may be the predominant language in the U.S., but it is not the official language. Unless your ancestors came from England, they spoke French, German, Dutch, Russian, Yiddish, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Chinese, Japanese, Gaelic, and whatever passes for English in Scotland. And the native tongue was anything BUT English if your ancestors were here before Columbus.

And when did we become the United States of Exclusively White People?  Which white people? The Irish were once scorned, partly for being Roman Catholic.  In 1889, the Bennett Law tried to make English the official language in Wisconsin, pissing off the Germans and Norwegians. So we’ve all been shunned at one time or another.

I live in the Chicago suburbs and we love our multicultural heritage. There are Asian, African-American, Hispanic, South Asian and Middle Eastern families within three blocks of my house. The son of the old Pakistani man drives a big-ass Dodge Ram pickup with a Chicago Bears sticker in the rear window.

Chicago has arguably the largest Polish population in the country and in a month we’ll be celebrating Fat Tuesday with P?czki (pronounced POHNCH-kee), a jelly doughnut on steroids. The city has ethnic festivals all summer long: Italian, Greek, Chinese, Thai, German, Hispanic, Irish, African, and Korean. There are African-American, gay, St. Patrick’s Day, Southside Irish, Northwest Side Irish, Chinese, Greek, Mexican, Polish and Puerto Rican parades every year.

No one is “shoving multiculturalism down our throats.”  It’s been here as long as we have.  No one says you have to participate, but you do have to tolerate it just as they tolerate you. I realize some of you resent having to sharing the pie, but that’s the price you pay for living in the melting pot. The Pledge of Allegiance reads, “…liberty and justice for all,” not “for some privileged people.” If you don’t believe me, maybe John Winger can convince you

“We’re all very different people. We’re not Watusi. We’re not Spartans. We’re Americans, with a capital ‘A’, huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We’re the underdog. We’re mutts!”

Oh, and for those of you boycotting Coke, Pepsico backs gay rights and its CEO and Chair is Indra K. Nooyi, an Indian-American woman.  Just thought you should know.