I'd be totally grateful!!!
You may be wondering what I'm talking about....even if you're not, I'm still going to tell you anyway....
It has to do with the General Mills commercial for Cheerios that features a family made up of a white woman, black man, and their daughter.
Here's a link to the commercial:
http://youtu.be/kYofm5d5Xdw
What's the controversy? The fact that there even IS a controversy seriously irritates me (for a whole HOST of reasons!!)
In all honesty, here were my reactions to the commercial the first time that I saw it:
- Aww, she loves her Daddy and wants to take care of his heart!
- Who's going to sweep up the Cheerios?
- Does she know how much that box of Cheerios cost!?
- Oh, wait! They are featuring a 'biracial' couple with a 'biracial' child that actually LOOKS like she could be 'biracial'!!
I'll explain my surprise at the last point. Too many times, especially here in the South, on those rare instances when a black-white biracial couple is shown with their child(ren), the kids look like me. "All black". Like one single drop of 'black blood' wipes out any chance of the kids looking like the white parent. And that's a sham. It perpetrates the stereotype that any amount of 'black blood' fouls a blood line and any children produced from that relationship will, at best, be crayon brown, but usually, you'll never even look sideways because you'll guess that they are just black kids. Especially if they are seen with their black parent, then, it's normal.....but, if they are seen with their white parent, then that parent must have adopted them because they were born to a mother who was, for whatever reason, unable to care for them. (Whew! sorry about that rant....it could have been worse, I'm trying to avoid my own controversy here.)
It's the haters like the people calling to boycott General Mills that are going to make my children's lives difficult. I really wish that they would just keep their hate to themselves and realize that there is not a person around who is a 'pure' anything!
Ok, end of rant....That's all that I am going to say about this (for now).
To any extent, this (black) woman, her (white) husband and our beautiful (biracial) children will support General Mills, and continue to buy Cheerios because, damn it, that is the right thing to do. If anyone has a problem with my support of the portrayal of a beautiful, loving family, then have your problem, just keep it to yourself....'cause if you let me know how you feel, be prepared to find out how I feel.
