Stateless in the Nation State 

In 1910 Katharine Lee Bates (August 12, 1859 — March 28, 1929) wrote the Star Spangled Banner. This song was recently used by the Coca-Cola company in a commercial which premiered during the 2014 Super Bowl. The commercial features “America the Beautiful” performed in nine different languages including English, Spanish, Tagalog, Mandarin, Hindi, Hebrew, Keres, French and Arabic (Poniewozik 2014, np). The commercial also includes a brief segment showing a gay family. The intention of the commercial was to include non-English languages and alternative sexualities in a televised event that is viewed by millions of Americans. The inclusion of different languages and lifestyles has caused some Americans to become outraged because these “others” fail at the American Ideal. This idea is that an ideal American is slender, wealthy speaks English and preforms whiteness (Butler 1998, 524). The commercial has received criticism on the other end of the social spectrum because the people the commercial depicts are not recognized as true Americans, and because out of thousands of Native American languages, it only included one (Staff 2014, np). The people depicted in the commercial have failed to live up to the American ideal, and for that reason have been forced into statelessness.

The homosexual family segment became a source of outrage from groups that see homosexuality as Anti-American. It might upset these “patriotic” groups to know that Katharine Lee Bates herself was a lesbian who lived with her partner Katharine Coman for 25 years until her death in 1929 (Chance 2005, 241). Despite this controversy, the commercial has been accepted by “forward thinking” Americans who view it as a step forward for human rights (Poniewozik 2014, np).

The Coca-Cola company was previously under fire from human rights groups because of their sponsorship of of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The 2014 Winter Olympics were protested and boycotted by multiple companies and human rights groups because of Russian anti-gay brutality and the “gay propaganda law” which prohibits displays of “gay propaganda” in front of minors (Walsh Jan 2014, np). Protestors in Russia fighting for the rights of LBGTQ people are commonly and violently being beaten and arrested by Russian police, as well as by extremist citizens (Walsh 2014, np). This violence has caused protest in America as well, as LGBTQ athletes who participated in the games feared they would be arrested because of their sexuality (Walsh 2014, np). This treatment of LBGTQ people in Russia caused Olympic athletes to protest the gay propaganda laws, with fifty one of them signing a petition for law reform (Walsh 2014, np). Coca-Colaʼs sponsorship of the games is being viewed by many as blatant disregard for LGBTQ rights in Russia. As such, some people are questioning the motives for the commercial, wondering if it was an attempt at damage control for the controversy surrounding Coca-Colaʼs sponsorship of the 2014 Winter olympics.

In Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivakʼs book, Who Sings the Nation State? Butler and Spivak discuss “statelessness” created by the nation-state. Statelessness is a legal concept describing the lack of any legal citizenship. It denotes the absence of a recognized link between an individual and state (Buitrago 2010, 3),

“A de jure stateless person is someone who is “not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law.” A de facto stateless person is someone who is outside the country of his or her nationality and is unable or, for valid reasons, unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country (Buitrago 2010, 5).”

Someone being made stateless is the product of “Ideal Americans” attempting to solidify homogeneity in the nation-state,

“Statelessness itself is the consequence of a nation-stateʼs attempts to solidify its own identity and homogeneity, which it then defends through the institutionalization of states of exception that suspend constitutional rights, and hence undermine the very identity of the state” (Laguardia 2009, 94).

This attempt at solidifying homogeneity in the nation-state is why ideas like “patriotism” often lead to xenophobia. Xenophobia is caused by the fear of people who do not live up to the American Ideal taking over the nation state. If a new American Ideal were to be created by a new, non- white group the previous ideal group would lose some of the privileges they had become accustom to. The idea of losing social privileges makes some Americans feel threatened, and in turn causes them to push against anyone foreign entering the nation state.

The negative response from “patriotic Americans” who watched Coca-Colaʼs 2014 Superbowl commercial highlight how common it is for Native American people and people immigrating to America to be forced into a life of statelessness,

“Native people are entrapped in a logic of genocidal appropriation. This logic holds that Indigenous peoples must disappear. In fact, they must always be disappearing, in order to allow non-Indigenous peopleʼs rightful claim over this land” (Smith 2010, 50)

If Native people refuse to allow their culture and language to disappear, they face exclusion from the nation state.

Stateless people are only accepted by xenophobic people after they disidentify with their culture (Munoz 1999, 4). “Who Sings the Nation State” brings up similar negative responses from xenophobic Americans after they witnessed the National Anthem being performed by a Mexican-American youth in Spanish (67). Butler questions why people seen as foreigners are forced into statelessness (68). Butler comments on this, and explains that Americans must be exposed to other cultures to begin to understand the flaws in homogeneity in the nation-state writing,

“Itʼs not that everything is accomplished through language. No, itʼs not as if I can say Iʼm free and then my performative utterance makes me free. No. But to make the demand on freedom is already to begin its exercise and then to ask for its legitimation is to also announce the gap between its exercise and its realization and to put both into public discourse in a way so that that gap is seen, so that that gap can mobilize (Butler and Spivak 2007, 68).

If people forced into statelessness refuse to disidentify with their language and culture, then their exclusion from the nation state will become more visible and in turn more people will recognize the problems with homogeneity in the nation state.

The negative controversy surrounding Coca Colas super bowl 2014 commercial brought to light the gap between people who preform the American ideal and those who do not and are forced into statelessness. While not necessarily positive, the commercial has created a public discourse about idealized race and sexuality. If more Americans refuse to disidentify with their non idealized traits the gay between idealized Americans and stateless Americans will become more visible and give stateless people the ability to mobilize and to fight for legal rights and recognition.

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