Whether one likes professional football or not, the Super Bowl has become a special day in American culture for a multitude of reasons. I am old enough to remember when it was just a game and trust me, it was truly better that way.
For better or worse though, the big game has become bigger than life.
There are worse things in American life than gathering to watch a mostly boring game backed with advertisements that cost more than what 99.9 percent of us will ever see in a lifetime.
Yes, Super Bowl Sunday is now part of our collective fabric.
It brings families and friends together, and that is fantastic. It showcases personal-interest stories that sometimes go past maudlin and are actually inspirational.
Unfortunately, Super Bowl Sunday also brings more unsavory groups of people and messages together.
The Super Bowl is “get even day” for scores of football gamblers.
Gamblers who have lost all year will try to get even in one last desperate bet.
Some succeed, some do not.
I am a proponent of legalized gambling so I believe the bringing together of degenerate gamblers and bookies is a good thing; as long as no legs get broken.
And yes, the last part of the last sentence is in jest.
Worse than bookies though are the demagogues. Words have meaning. They can inspire, demean, foment and injure.
This brings me back to a much-hyped part of the Super Bowl: the commercials.
There was a time when Super Bowl commercials were just ads, not cultural touchstones.
I yearn for those days, but I am just being a cranky, middle-aged man when I say that.
What I really yearn for is the day when conservatives in this country will learn that “if it is not white, it is alright.”
I am referring to the Coca-Cola and Cheerios commercials from the game Sunday.
For those who missed the game or the commercials, the Coke ad featured “America the Beautiful” being sung by non-whites in their native languages.
The ad’s purpose was to show how America is indeed a melting pot and that Coca-Cola, like all our many different ethnicities, is truly American.
The Cheerios commercial featured the same adorable bi-racial girl and her family that created such a stir in conservative circles this past summer.
Both of these commercials describe what is right with our nation. Our ethnic backgrounds, our language of birth, our religion should not matter one bit; we are all Americans.
Of course this does not apply to the Fox News crowd. They hit Twitter in full force, raging against a patriotic song being sung in something other than English.
Undeterred by the backlash their racism pertaining to the first Cheerios ad brought them, they railed against the second commercial also.
Once again, the right wing of American politics cannot help itself from becoming racist and jingoistic. These flag-wavers are what Thomas Paine called “Sunshine Patriots.” They wave the flag while despising what America really stands for: freedom. Yes, these freedoms include singing in your native, non-English tongue.
These freedoms also include having a bi-racial child. These freedoms include wearing a kippah, like two men did in the Coke commercial.
Recently, a new term has been coined to define who is really leading the American’s right. It is WORM. It stands for White Old Racist Men.
The backlash about these two thoughtful, sweet Super Bowl commercials confirms that WORM is an apt moniker for these people.
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