Associate Director Michael Hill, discusses the Cheerios commercial featuring an interracial couple and their daughter that generated a strong racist backlash on YouTube.
Many Adoption STAR families are multi-racial families directly as a result of adopting transracially. With that in mind, I’ve taken an active interest in the still fairly recent “Cheerios” commercial that General Mills developed. Below is the YouTube video if you haven’t seen the commercial in question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYofm5d5Xdw
Interestingly enough, there was a great deal of reaction to the commercial – and much of it was very negative. So negative, in fact, that General Mills decided to disable the comments section associated with the YouTube version of the commercial. If you’re interested in learning more about the controversy surrounding the video, check out the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IamL6lfkQ5s
There have been many interesting items posted on-line that work to not only support General Mills for their commitment for developing such a commercial, but to support multi-racial families in the United States in general.
One great example of this came from Michael David Murphy and Alyson West, a husband/wife team that developed a website called “We Are the 15 Percent.” Murphy says, “When my wife and I watched the video, it felt great to (finally) see a representation of our own family.” He goes on to explain that, “we created this site to publicly reflect the changing face of the American family. According to the 2008 census, 15% of new marriages are interracial.” Murphy and West say that “if you’re in an interracial marriage, or family, and live in the US, please see how to send in your photo for consideration” and potential posting on the website. We would LOVE to see some Adoption STAR families add their beautiful faces to this website! Who knows…maybe some Adoption STAR families have done this already (although I haven’t seen any, but I hope to soon)?
Lastly, I came across a powerful video that features kids and their reactions to the commercial itself. The video literally brought me to tears, and for all the right reasons. You can check it out for yourself here:
I’ve been truly captivated by this commercial (and the ensuing developments) for weeks now; based on several things I’ve seen on Facebook, clearly many of you have been, too. I wasn’t looking to necessarily add to the dialogue with this blog post, but I did want people to be aware of what was transpiring. It has been wonderful to see the “home grown” websites and videos (like the aforementioned two), as they’ve provided me with both a sense of hope and a sense of pride. Over time, with each passing census, the data will speak for itself: our families (and as a result our entire country) are becoming more and more racially diverse (and if what we see from the children in the “response video” does indeed ring true for the majority of young people in America, this reality just isn’t a big deal to them AT ALL).
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