What's So Great About the BC Clark Jingle

As anyone from Oklahoma call tell you, the holiday season hasn't started until we begin hearing the ubiquitous, seemingly timeless BC Clark Anniversary Sale jingle. Indeed (and this is no news to anyone in the Sooner State) the jingle is a legitimate Christmas Carol in Oklahoma. A simple YouTube search leads to videos of people singing the song in the mall (this clip, I was surprised to discover, contains a very short clip of a high school girlfriend of mine), elementary school students, and a college chorus from OCU singing the song in concerts, Okie celebrity Megan Mullally singing the jingle on Jay Leno's show, and Oklahoma Baptist University students singing the song in chapel. The fact that this is not our state's official Christmas carol can only be seen as an oversight by our state legislature.

It might be easy to look at this phenomenon as a sign that Christmas is indeed an over-commercial holiday, or that even our holiday memories are commodified. One might say, "hey, their favorite Christmas carol is a jingle for an incredibly expensive jewelry store. That says everything I need to know about this rotten X-mas stuff. Bah, humbug." But I see it rather differently.

When I was at Harding, Christmas-time would roll around and, separated from home, we would begin to walk around the campus singing the jingle. Invariably, we would do this in a group of people from all over the country singing Christmas carols, and the song would make an appearance. As those of us from Oklahoma chimed in, folks from other parts would look at us askant as we skipped through the well trodden 32 seconds of the Okie classic. And, for those of us longing for home, the song was a way to connect.

The song was, in fact, how we found one another. You always knew the Oklahomans by the jingle. With admitted hyperbole, I would compare our singing of the song to ancient Christians meeting one another in the streets and asking "are you of the Way?" When you heard the song, you knew you were among brethren.

The point is, and this what makes the jingle so great, in a world where so much is becoming homogenized and where regionalism is dying, the jingle and the tradition it has spawned are profoundly local. A 32 second TV spot in the 45th largest TV market has somehow managed to become a social glue. Knowing and singing the song gives those of us from Oklahoma a sense of inclusion, and ties us to the history of our people. It is what, in a strangely cohesive way, seperates Us from Them. No matter where in the country we run into another Okie, we can sing the song and we can know that we are neighbors; we are "of the way."

Brown in Oklahoma: the Frightening Social Statement of the 2010 Elections

With this year's election having ended, it is time for the post-mortem to begin. I have little doubt that some who read this post will take it as evidence that I have finally slipped to the left. I will be especially pleased when one of you accuses me of pulling the "race card." I have been extremely vocal about the state questions and political platforms in this year's campaigns that I see as obtusely closed-minded and transparently racist. And to my chagrin, though not to my surprise, I have seen all of these measures and people win. So, in this post I will look at these measures, what they mean, and what this election should teach us about who we are as a people and as a state.

SQ 751: English-Only

This is the question that, as a Composition and Rhetoric student with a devout interest in literacy, I have been most interested in and vocal about. State Question 751, which passed by a margin of basically 75% to 25%, makes English the official language for state business transactions. By law all state documents will now be printed only in English.

It's important here to note that I spend four days a week surrounded by language experts - English experts at that. And yet, I do not know of one of us who thinks that anything like SQ 751 is a good idea. Of course, no one thought to ask the experts about this. If they had, we could have told them all about the practical dangers of such a law. As literacy experts, we could have explained to them that speaking a language and writing a language are distinctly separate, even if related, processes. Doing one does not guarantee the ability to do the other. What this means from a practical standpoint is that legal immigrants with perfectly sufficient spoken English may not be able to read it a bit. So SQ 751 has put legal and tax-paying Oklahoma residents in a situation in which they may not be able to fill out Oklahoma Student Loan Authority forms, Sooner Care forms and applications, Driver's license tests and other state documents. Thus, we've blocked access to opportunities and services that spur the upward mobility that we pretend to privilege in what we mythologize as an open and free society.

We could have told them these things, but they never asked us. That's because the actual issue of language was never the point anyway. Instead, this has been yet another example of what John Trimbur has called the discourse of literacy crisis. This is the populist belief that the English language is in crisis and that the result, if not remedied, will be cultural dissolution as well. As a recent case in point, News 9 broadcaster Kelly Ogle, in his consistently asinine segment "My Two Cents" asserts that, "the English language is the common thread that will keep this country from fragmenting into competing ethnic communities" (Ogle). I should add here that he is responding (and disagreeing with) a woman who is angry that her child should learn the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish. . .in a Spanish class.

Of course, such an argument assumes that 1) we're not currently fragmented into ethnic communities, and 2) that English- only legislation has anything whatsoever to do with cultural unity. Both of these are highly dubious claims. The persistent narrative that allowing a multiplicity of languages will lead to linguistic chaos, which will lead to cultural and political chaos is, rather than an actual realizable fear, according to Trimbur a displacement of real fears about middle class loss of status. In her article "When I close my Eyes, I like to Hear English" Amy Dayton-Wood, citing linguist Jane Hill points out that the "lack of specific, technical features of language. . .reaffirms the view that language itself does not motivate these crises." Instead, as Trimbur says, "the threat is not that of linguistic chaos but of blurring the lines between 'us' and 'them'" (Trimbur 279). So these crises and the policies that grow out of them re-assert a cultural hegemony that privileges those of us safely in the middle class at the expense of those who came here believing in our cultural myth of America as "Land of Opportunity." It instead becomes the Land-of-Opportunity for those of us who already possess the right language. And so SQ 751, and policies like it are really about protecting "us" by shutting "them" out.

Arizona Law as Oklahoma Platform

If SQ 751 had the unstated goal of shutting "them" out, this goal became explicit among politicians who campaigned by expressing their support of the Arizona Immigration Law. On the surface, it may seem odd that Oklahoma politicians should take a public stand on an Arizona issue, until one realizes that the implication is that, if elected, these politicians would enact similar legislation here in Oklahoma.

I'm a bit more sympathetic to those who place importance on protecting standing immigration laws than I am to SQ 751. Despite thinking that our immigration laws are bad laws in need of liberalization, I can appreciate the view that these laws are still the law of the land, and should therefore be enforced. However, the way some politicians handled this issue is troubling and telling.

One radio ad in particular, funded by the Senate Majority Fund invokes highly charged language, asserting that "Oklahoma is being invaded," and is "endangered by an outside force," dangerous criminals who are "threatening our citizens” (SMF). Such rhetorical moves function by characterizing immigrants as an invading army. They treat an issue of law enforcement as one of war. Thus, the impoverished itinerate farmers, seasonal roofers, and service employees who cross our border are spoken of as if they were enemy combatants - clever Athenians who may build our houses only to hide in the attic waiting for us to fall asleep.

An Aside in 755

It may seem like a digression that at this point I will bring up SQ 755 which, by a 70-30 margin made it illegal for state courts to consider Sharia law or international law in state court decisions, but I will bring it around to make my final conclusions. Kurt Hochenauer, on the online version of the Oklahoma Gazette's opinion section rightfully criticized this law as being "pointless." This is because it is a basic legal principal in our legal system that court decisions are based on state law and the jurisprudence of past court decisions. Neither if these would allow consideration for Sharia law. Justification for the need for this law was the Great Britian has, in some instances, considered Sharia law and international law when prosecuting Islamic prisoners. Of course, since we broke ties with the UK's legal system more that 230 years ago (and 141 years before Oklahoma became a state), what they've done in their courts is totally irrelevant to Oklahoma state law. SQ 755 is a non-law that did nothing except to re-affirm that we don't like Muslims or their law and we don't want to be pushed around by the U.N.

Conclusion: Hatred in the "Bible Belt"

The common thread in these laws is that in effect (and, I would argue, in design) they delineate the state's official stance on who we dislike: Mexicans, Arabs, and Outsiders.

I find it sadly ironic that in the states most proud of their religiosity there also exist laws so specifically designed to express hate. Of course, we justify these laws with arguments about practicality. We simply can't allow this flood of immigrants; how can we support them all? I've also lately seen a lot of the common false claims that immigrants are bankrupting our society by taking advantage of free schools, and hospitals, and that illegal immigrants are receiving welfare, all claims that the National Center for Policy Analysis soundly disproves. The common line of reasoning, especially among people who begin their sentences with platitudes like “I’m all for legal immigration,” or “some of my best friends are Mexicans but. . .) is that "we would love to have an open society, we just can't afford to." Thus, we close ourselves off, we refuse to fulfill the promise of our nation, and we say "you're just not welcome here," despite our founding as a free and open society that would say “send us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. And worse than our failure to live up to our founding principles is that we do so even as we drive around in brand new extremely expensive cars with "Visit Church this Month" bumper stickers pasted to the back.

Cited:

Dayton-Wood, Amy. “When I Close My Eyes, I Like to Hear English: English Only and the Discourse of Crisis.” Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture. 10 Aug 2010. Web. 3 Nov 2010.

Hochenauer, Kurt. “What’s the Point.” OKGazette.com. Oklahoma Gazette. 6 Oct 2010. Web. 3 Nov 2010.

“Immigrants, Welfare, and Work.” NCPA. National Center for Policy Awareness. 24 Jun 2002. Web. 3 Nov 2010.

Ogle, Kelly. “My 2 Cents: Mother Angry Over Spanish Pledge of Allegiance Assignment.” News9.com. KWTV, 28 Oct 2010. Web. 3 Nov 2010

“Senate Majority Fund.” YouTube.com. 26 Oct 2010. Web. 3 Nov 2010.

Trimbur, John. “Literacy and the Discourse of Crisis.” The Politics of Writing Instruction: Postsecondary. Ed John Trimbur and Richard Bullock. Portsmith, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1996.