A commercial for popular morning staple, Cheerios, has been drawing comments from the less than intelligent part of American society. Yes, an advertisement that featured a “biracial” family drew thousands of comments from racists cereal eaters.
The commercial features a biracial girl asking her white mother is Cheerios are good for your heart, and then spilling them all over her black father’s chest – seemingly trying to put it in heart directly.
The advertisement, which most Americans probably thought cute, didn’t please the less integrated part of the United States. Thousands of comments were left on YouTube, expressing shock and awe that biracial families eat…. Heaven forbid, Cherios.
“The comments that were made in our view were not family-friendly, and that was really the trigger for us, you know, to pull them off,’’ said Camille Gibson, VP marketing for General Mills on NBC.
Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman said. “Unfortunately, with all of its positive benefits to society, the Internet also has a dark side, which rears its ugly head when anonymous users use it to spread overtly racist messages,”
Many of the comments left referred to “racial genocide,” and African Americans being “troglodytes.” A sample of some offensive comments also read:
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“They want to throw white children and coloured children into the melting pot of integration, out of which will come a conglomerated, mulatto, MONGREL class of people! Both races will be destroyed in such a movement. I for one, under God will die before I’ll yield one inch…”
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No, it’s not about race. I’m not racist, it’s just that Cheerios ad families have been traditionally white and I’m just upset they had to go and change established characters for political correctness. I mean how would black people feel if they replaced Apple Jack ad families with white people. It’s totally not a racist thing, I just can’t relate to a black guy eating Cheerios, because all other Cheerios eating dads were white. Again not racist, just don’t understand why multi-culturalism is being shoved into my cereal eating habits. Again, not racist. Also, I have an intense hate for Obama, not because he is black, but because of his policies that are biased in favor of black people. Totally not a racist. Maybe you are the racist for thinking I am a racist. Yes, you are racist not me. Obama is a reverse racist.
Mary C. Curtis wrote in the Washington Post an interesting comment:
“Who would have thought that breakfast cereal would trigger the latest racial battle line? In this case, a Cheerios ad much like every other homespun Cheerios ad — with a heart healthy message and loving family – ran into trouble from some commenters because of the kind of family it featured. Mom is white, dad is black and their cute little daughter is a mix of the both of them….
“…In making this ad, Cheerios is just reflecting the new reality, and might be gaining themselves many more customers than those inclined to punish them – if those folks even ate the cereal to begin with. Just as young people today think living in an America with a black first family in the White House is simply the way it is, children who see a family like their own on TV will hardly give the ad a second glance.”
“Maybe it was naive of me, but I shot it just like any other job, commercial, otherwise, that I work on,” actress Whitney Avalon, who plays the mom in the ad, told HuffPostLive. “I don’t personally have any issue whatsoever with whatever color people’s skin happens to be in a family and nobody I know — as far as I know — does, so I was actually surprised that there was this contingent that apparently hadn’t made it to this century.”
I’m not sure what is worse, that the inbred population of the US are somehow surprised that people of all races eat Cheerios, or that they can figure how to get on the internet now. Oh well.
