It’s been forty-plus years since John F. Kennedy famously stated, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” While grammatically correct, this moment has gone down in history as a joke, with the story being that the statement means, “I am a jelly doughnut,” not “I am a citizen of Berlin.”
Given the time that has passed, and the persistence of the story, it would seem logical that today’s politicians would take this lesson to heart and be very, very careful about using Berlitz catch-phrases to show that they embrace multiculturalism. Over the past twenty years, we’ve seen multiculturalism take center stage in government and business. Some have done it well: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a private Spanish tutor who he sits with for daily lessons. Unfortunately, it seems like there are many more who have just embarrassed themselves and caused damage to their campaigns by being over-eager and over-confident when embracing other cultures. Mitt Romney has joined this latter group.
During a campaign stop in Miami earlier this month, Romney stumbled over the names of local Latino leaders, used a phrase (in Spanish) that is a rallying cry for Fidel Castro, and quoted the film (albeit unintentionally) Scarface. Needless to say, his audience, and the community, did not find this amusing. Rather than portraying him as culturally sensitive, his gaffes only seemed to characterize him as just another ignorant white man in a suit.
I am sure none of this was intentional, but for a presidential candidate, it’s just sloppy. If you’re running a national campaign for the highest office in the land, you better know your stuff (or have someone on staff who does). Venturing into unfamiliar territory outside of their comfort zone is always a risk for you. But successful candidates (Bloomberg) hedge against this risk and make certain that their gesture is perfect and that there is no way it can be misconstrued or offend anyone.
If a politician is going to be working in or representing a diverse community (and the President serves the entire U.S., which is as diverse as you can get), his campaign has to know that community. His advisors have to be familiar with the group’s cultural touchstones, understand their history and be aware of different dialects and quirks of grammar or context. The Latino community is a big constituency in the U.S.–and growing–it pays to do your homework.
Which is what Romney’s spokesman argues. However, you’d think that a quote containing the phrase “fatherland,” and the word “death,” would have raised a couple of eyebrows. Or that some young staffer would have questioned a phrase that is well known as a quote from a popular movie criticized for perpetuating cultural stereotypes.
Usually politicians and government officials have a tendency of being too cautious—choosing their words so carefully that it dilutes or underplays their message. However, a little reflection would have served Romney well in this instance—hopefully he’ll be a wee bit more careful test-driving his foreign language skills in the future.
