Interracial Accommodation

When I first saw that Cheerios commercial with the interracial couple and their mixed-race little girl, I thought, "Oh, how cute!" In the ad, the little girl has poured the cereal on her father's left breast after her mother tells her it's good for the heart.  I wasn't really fazed that much by the fact that the father is black and the mother is white.  I know several black male/white female couples - none of which live in my hometown, of course. While I was mildly surprised that a TV ad would acknowledge interracial couples, it was really no big deal to me.

Well, you can imagine what happened once all the bigots saw it.  General Mills, which makes Cheerios, got rabid hate mail for it, and probably the ad agency did as well.  A lot of people said they'd never buy Cheerios again, but there was more feedback in favor of the ad, ensuring that it will run for a commercial's normal life cycle.   MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell expressed his solidarity with  the ad men behind this commercial by eating a bowl of Cheerios on his program, which I thought was clever until I realized it turned what's supposed to be a serious news analysis show into absurdist theater. Would Eric Sevareid have done such a thing? (Eric who? Never mind!)

My only objection to the ad was that it didn't show a white male/black female couple.  Hey, they do exist, not just on scripted TV shows!  So how about it, Kellogg's? Why not respond with a commercial showing a white male/black female couple and a child . . . for Rice Krispies?

Anyway, I recently saw another ad for Booking.com, the online lodging accommodation site, showing a man driving a subcompact car with his wife riding shotgun through a landscape of untamed tropical wilderness (i.e., a jungle), on their way to a resort that he booked a room in.  As they ride by a fire and some unfriendly-looking locals down a dirt road, the woman begins to doubt her husband's trip planning abilities . . . until they reach their destination and the resort is everything her husband promised.  Then they hit the beach.  Here's the clincher: The woman is Asian and her husband is white.

Now why didn't this ad get any racist backlash?  Was it the fact that most people are more comfortable with a Caucasoid/Mongoloid pairing - because of the John and Yoko legacy?  Was it the possibility that more people were offended by the ad's unintentional racism - showing poverty-stricken natives whose communities are being adversely affected by these gated resorts? Maybe.  But it could also be that no one minded the interracial couple in this commercial because it didn't show them as parents of a biracial child.

You know how I'll know that this country has transcended racism? When we start seeing interracial couples in commercials for erectile dysfunction pills.  That'll be when . . . the moment is right. :-D

Below is that Booking.com ad I mentioned.