Pepsi’s prez paints pathetic pic of postgrad promise

Charmaine Yoest says that after spending a lot of time today on the phone with PepsiCo’s PR people, talking about Pepsi’s President and CFO Indra Nooyi’s speech to Columbia University graduates,

PepsiCo is trying valiantly to emphasize the “misconstrued” line. That word come up several times when I talked with them this morning. Terri Maini, a Consumer Relations Supervisor, told me, “I really think it was misconstrued.” In response to my follow-up questions, Donna Leskowski, Manager for Public Affairs, said much the same thing.

Basically, Ms. Nooyi said that America is the big finger of the world’s hand, and, said she, “You know what I’m talking about. In fact, I suspect you’re hoping that I’ll demonstrate what I mean.”

However, for all its anti-America bias, I am undecided whether to boycott Pepsi products for that reason or because it simply is a really lousy speech. Bad public speaking should not be rewarded.

Let us take a face value Ms. Nooyi’s assertion that she wanted to enjoin the graduates to be well behaved on the world scene and encourage them to respect other cultures. And let us pass over the fact that she dwelled at length and in detail upon the most obscene and degrading gesture of this culture, the middle-finger gesture. (Talk about mixed signals!)

No, let me take the pledge against Pepsi’s products not because of what Ms. Nooyi said but because she said it so badly. As speeches go, this one went. Thankfully, it went quickly at only three and one-half typed pages, a brevity for which Columbia’s newest alumni were doubtless grateful.

Once the pleasantries of the introductory paragraphs were finished, the speech was a litany of nattering negativism. Its entire content may be fairly summarized: “Don’t be an ugly American.”

There is in fact no positive message. There is no dream to aspire to, no model to emulate, just a lengthy anecdote of beer-swilling, boorish Americans yucking it up in a Beijing bar because they don’t like Chinese toilet fixtures (the middle finger and scatological references -
talk about cultural insensitivity!).

And the message is - don’t be like those guys. Yee-hah.

My homiletics professors in seminary had several ironclad rules for presenting sermons for which transgressions were sharply penalized in grades. One of them was simply, “Always end with a word of grace.” No matter how grim a particular passage might be, by the end of the sermon we had to explain how the grace of God could break through and be manifested, somehow, someway. “It is,” we were admonished, “terribly ineffective theologically and rhetorically to send an audience (or congregation) out with only negative words to dwell on.”

And that is exactly what Ms. Nooyi did.

There are two examples I recommend to Ms. Nooyi before she gives another public-arena speech. One is to examine the weekly program of instruction at Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Depot. There she will discover that the recruits being molded into new Marines and given lengthy repeated instruction on the history, traditions, heroes and accomplishments of the US Marine Corps. They spend most of a whole day in the base’s excellent Marine
Corps Museum.

The message is strong and eloquent: you are part of something grander and bigger than yourself. You have been bequeathed a magnificent legacy; it is your sacred trust to carry it forward. These are the deeds the Marine Corps has done; these are the brave and devoted Marines who did them. Be like them. Aspire to their greatness. Even exceed them.

What the new recruits are not told is that their new duty is, “Don’t screw up.”

Next, read General of the Army Douglas MacArthur’s address to West Point’s Corps of Cadets in 1962. This speech has been rightly acclaimed as one of the very finest example sof oratory in American history. A little comparison. Here is a graf from Ms. Nooyi’s speech in which she explains what a woman overheard in a Beijing bar. It forms the central part of the speech:

In the hotel’s bar, the woman overheard a group of five American businessmen loudly making fun of the hotel’s lavatory facilities. As the drinks flowed, the crass and vulgar comments grew louder, and actually took on an angry, jingoistic tone. While these Americans couldn’t speak a word of Chinese, their Chinese hosts spoke English very well and understood every word the men were saying.

And we wonder why the world views many Americans as boorish and culturally insensitive. This incident should make it abundantly clear. These men were not giving China a hand. They were giving China the finger. This finger was red, white and blue and had the United States stamped all over it.

Graduates, it pains me greatly that this view of America persists. Although I’m a daughter of India, I’m an American businesswoman. My family and I are citizens of this great country.

Then after she uttered the magic words, “in conclusion:”

Remember that the middle finger – The United States – always stands out. If you’re smart, if you exhibit emotional intelligence as well as academic intelligence – if you ascribe positive intent to all your actions on the international business stage – this can be a great advantage. But, if you aren’t careful –if you stomp around in a tone-deaf fog like the ignoramus in Beijing — it will also get you in trouble. And when it does, you will have only yourself to blame.

By the way, public speakers, never, ever signal that the end of your speech is near. When you finish it should always take your hearers by surprise. As soon as you signal, explicitly or implicitly, that you are about to stop, you lose your audience right there. Mentally, they move straight on to the next item on the program.

That point aside, now compare Ms. Nooyi’s talk to this paragraph from MacArthur’s speech at West Point .

And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? … Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man-at-arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefield many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then as I regard him now — as one of the world’s noblest figures, not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless. His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give.

Near the end, Notice that he didn’t gloss over controversies and adverse aspects of American life, but he did surmount them:

Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.

You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.

Rhetorically, Nooyi’s speech was a mess. More than that, it was insulting to the graduates. She talked down to them and sought to impart a sense of shame where they had done no wrong.

In the hours since I read Ms. Nooyi’s statement today claiming her “remarks at Columbia University were misconstrued and depicted in a different context as unpatriotic,” I have been trying to give her benefit of the doubt. Yet with each reading of her speech, her words rankle all the more. Those of us who have spent years overseas in national service will never claim sainthood, but we haven’t been giving the world the finger, either.

I wish Ms. Nooyi could meet this Air Force aeromedical evacuation flight nurse who wrote,

In the past when I have said or have heard other people say, “God bless America”, to me America was a place I cansidered home. God bless America meant, God bless the place that I live and the military that protects me and the government that makes me free. As of yesterday, that has changed for me.

My unit has picked up NATO soldiers at hospitals here in Kosovo that in the states we would consider condemned. Hospitals where there are no pillows, blankets, or sheets and wires are hanging from the ceiling and there are holes in the floors. When we arrive the NATO soldiers always look up at us with gratitude in their eyes and say thank God please get me out of here. Yesterday I did a Med Cap in town. I was giving out medications to over 200 people and being very buisy when one old woman grabbed my arm demanding my attention and stoping me from working. She held my hand with one of hers and with her other hand she patted my cheek. For a moment in my own self righteousness I shuddered from her touch. All I could think about was the filth and the stench of the woman and what she could be transmitting to me by touching me. But then she began saying something in Albanian over and over again. I turned to ask my interpreter what she was saying and he told me that she was saying, “God bless America, God bless America, that’s all I can say is God bless America.”

I was too busy to think about it just then but last night I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I realize now that with that old womans touch the only thing she gave to me was a gift I will never forget. She let me know that when I think that America (home) is thousands of miles away, to her it is right here, in me. I AM AMERICA! To the rest of the world it is not a place. In their time of need, it is the representation of what we believe. We are one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL! So now when I have a moment of homesickness wondering why I am here and why the US doesn’t let us come home and stop worrying about the rest of the world. I will remember that old woman. She gave me a sense of purpose and taught me a wonderful lesson… .

If I didn’t share this story with all of you I just wouldn’t have felt right. I made a deep impact on me. Please pray for all of those people who are deployed and also pray for the people in those countries who’s lives have been destroyed by war. We are all God’s people.

I really don’t think that Ms. Nooyi is as wordly wise as she tries to impress. Let us hope that before her next commencement speech she gets out more.

On its opneing weekend of May 6-8, KOH made just under $20 million, an unimpressive showing. Last weekend its take dropped more than 50 percent to $9.625 million. Its production cost was $139 million. Including its overseas take, the movie has just broken even on production. But its advertising and distribution costs haven’t begun to be recouped. No doubt they will and including all markets the movie will show a profit. But certainly not a big profit.