"Just Checking" the new ad rolled out by General Mills for its much beloved cereal brand Cheerios has caused a stir. The new ad features a white mother, a black father, and their biracial daughter.
Watch the ad
The cherub faced little one is on a quest to discover the health benefits of her favorite breakfast food. The ad ends with the little girl sprinkling Cheerios on the left side of her father's chest, above his heart. Adorable to some, outright miscegeny to others.
Over the last 20 years, actors beige in color have populated the small and big screens in ever increasing numbers. The success of actors like Halle Berry, The Rock, Vin Diesel and Zoe Saldana attest to Americas comfort with mixed race people. So why the stir over this 30 second spot? I can only assume the fact that Cheerios had the audacity to show the beige child's parents tugged at a scab in the American psyche. In other words, we don't mind the product, but don't force us to look at the producers.
This begs the question: from where America do you think these beige people come? And why do you care? Cheerios' Youtube.com channel received so many negative, and many racist, comments that the comment section was taken down. One comment said the mother in the ad would soon be a single Mom as the black father would soon 'dip.' One only needs to turn on cable news, one channel in particular, to hear some of the vitriol thrown at our Commander-In-Chief, a man of biracial parentage.
I lived in Orlando, Florida three years ago, a five year break from life in the Washington, DC metro area. It was in Florida where I gave birth to my two boys and my husband and I decided we preferred to start our family close to our parents and siblings. On many afternoons at the park, I watched silver haired white grandfathers chase beige children up one rock wall and down another sliding board. They would turn to me and, unguarded, ask advice about washing hair and moisturizing skin. Mind you, these gentlemen would not have given me the time of day when we passed each other in the grocery store, but here on a sunny afternoon their need was palpable. I obliged them with lengthy, thoughtful answers. And they nodded their appreciation. Was I insulted? Absolutely not. Parenting really does take a village and I was pleased, albeit a bit amused, that a violent paradigm shift humbled these proud men to ask a black woman and stranger for help.
It is for this reason that I am appreciative of the Cheerios ad. Heart disease does not care about the color of the skin around it. Regardless of our personal paradigms, disease and America's changing demographic are both a present reality. And if a little beige child with the face of an angel moves dyed-in-the-wool racists to face their anger and fear, well then I say 'Bravo!'
America, how are you really doing? Just checking.