Biracial Cheerios Commercial Sparks Racist Comments

Salt Lake City Deseret News

A Cheerios commercial released last Tuesday featuring a biracial family has received numerous racist remarks. General Mills, which owns Cheerios, disabled comments on the YouTube video because they were offensive.

In the 31-second commercial, a young biracial daughter asks her white mother if Cheerios are “good for your heart,” and later shows that the girl has poured Cheerios over her black father’s chest while he was sleeping in a playful gesture to help his heart.

“The comments that were made were, in our view, not family-friendly, and that was really the trigger for us to pull them off,” said Camille Gibson, vice president for marketing for General Mills on TODAY.

Really? A cute family friendly commercial, showing a loving all-American family, has sparked racist hate comments from some people. Most comments were positive. But it's just sad that there will always be a few backwards people who embarrass themselves like this. Cheerios says that they are a family friendly site so they have removed the racial hate comments.

BTW .. I've seen the commercial many times. The bi-racial element wasn't a big deal.
Its not like it's a preachy thing or an in-your-face thing. It's just a CEREAL thing ....

I saw this story the other day and I don't understand why some people are so resistant to diversity. :shk: I think they need to get out more.

There are so many biracial people today... what's the problem? Our president is biracial, for Christ's sake! For people who are "against" it, it's time to get over it and find other interests in life!

People have a reason to complain about anything and everything these days, so stupid. I've seen the commercial and I actually thought it was pretty cute, the bi-racial aspect was not even an issue for me. Will we ever move past this nonsense?

and yet, from all of what we hear, there is no racism...that's all from the 20th century, and there is no racism toward our half-black president in this 21st century....how many times on this very site has a poster said "that people play the race card" when talking about Obama.

Its the internet, the epic land of memes like the rape sloth and crazy writing black kid - its the land of take out of context for humor, their PR team should have thought about this before even releasing it. I'd say the people who removed the comments did the best thing to be honest, it would have only escalated.

But I mean, come one, A mix race child asking her white mother if Cheerios are good for their hearts, and then the kid goes on to poor it onto her black fathers chest - Which in the land of internet, means this black man has no heart.

The advert is not racist what so ever, just very poorly thought about. People who have never been on the internet created this advert, for sure.

I'm even starting to think it may be a genius PR stunt.

reply to post by FlyersFan


I saw this commercial many times over the weekend. It never dawned on me about the racial make-up until some &#*@$!'s made a deal out of it.

I just thought it was a well made commercial.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
Salt Lake City Deseret News

A Cheerios commercial released last Tuesday featuring a biracial family has received numerous racist remarks. General Mills, which owns Cheerios, disabled comments on the YouTube video because they were offensive.

In the 31-second commercial, a young biracial daughter asks her white mother if Cheerios are “good for your heart,” and later shows that the girl has poured Cheerios over her black father’s chest while he was sleeping in a playful gesture to help his heart.

“The comments that were made were, in our view, not family-friendly, and that was really the trigger for us to pull them off,” said Camille Gibson, vice president for marketing for General Mills on TODAY.

Really? A cute family friendly commercial, showing a loving all-American family, has sparked racist hate comments from some people. Most comments were positive. But it's just sad that there will always be a few backwards people who embarrass themselves like this. Cheerios says that they are a family friendly site so they have removed the racial hate comments.

BTW .. I've seen the commercial many times. The bi-racial element wasn't a big deal.
Its not like it's a preachy thing or an in-your-face thing. It's just a CEREAL thing ....

Actually, I'm going to go with there is an agenda. How come all these commercials on TV ALWAYS seem to have biracial couples on it? It's not like there's a high percentage of them in the population. I was just watching TV and the commercials were on; out of 6 commercials 4 of them had biracial or non white people in them. Now I don't have a problem with non-whites in commercials and I'm not racist, but it's evident that it's no coincidence and they are purposefully selecting them for commercials over whites. What I DO have a problem with is them selecting actors based on skin color and not talent.

So the question is, are the companies just doing it to appear more diverse and overdoing it, or is there a political agenda to push biracial relationships?

Originally posted by WP4YT

Actually, I'm going to go with there is an agenda. How come all these commercials on TV ALWAYS seem to have biracial couples on it? It's not like there's a high percentage of them in the population.

How many were black man/white woman? It's always this way around, it's incredibly rare to see a black woman with a white man in adverts. At least here in the UK it is.

This alone makes me wonder if there's something to it. If there wasn't, why is it mostly this way round?

Originally posted by n00bUK
A mix race child asking her white mother if Cheerios are good for their hearts, and then the kid goes on to poor it onto her black fathers chest - Which in the land of internet, means this black man has no heart.

Man ... I didn't get that at all.
I just thought it was a cute commercial.
It got the point across about 'heart healthy'.
And I thought the showcase was a little girl loving her daddy.

Originally posted by WP4YT
How come all these commercials on TV ALWAYS seem to have biracial couples on it?

I haven't noticed that at all. Of course .. it's not like I"m looking for it so perhaps it's there.
But there ARE bi-racial people out there .. and bi-racial families.

So the question is, are the companies just doing it to appear more diverse and overdoing it, or is there a political agenda to push biracial relationships?

My own opinion ... companies are just putting out what the average American family looks like ... and 'average american families' are very diverse. So naturally a few will pop up that are multi-racial. And no, I don't think there is an agenda to push biracial relationships. What could the reason for that be? I don't see one. IMHO

reply to post by WP4YT

Originally posted by WP4YT
How come all these commercials on TV ALWAYS seem to have biracial couples on it?

If that were the case, wouldn't they be in the news, like this one is?

I was just watching TV and the commercials were on; out of 6 commercials 4 of them had biracial or non white people in them.

That's called diversity. There are many biracial AND non-white people in the US. Companies are doing it to show diversity. To be inclusive. And bottom line... to make money from the diverse population. Companies are MUCH more interested in money than politics.

I haven't even seen the commercial yet, but I've read about the controversy surrounding it a few times. I can't say I'm surprised though because I've seen plenty of youtube videos where any time there is a black person or Jewish person in it, some racist people show up to make nasty comments.

I see it here at ats every once in a while whenever a topic comes up about race, certain people crawl out of their holes to make crazy comments about people of other races, or try to claim there's an agenda trying to force race mixing....

But personally, I think it's about time they represent they diversity of families in America.

People will always complain. If it was an all-white family in an all-white suburb depicting a lot of wealth there would be groups complaining as well. We should ignore them all shouldn't we?

reply to post by WP4YT

Seriously??? After reading your comment I watched 32 commercials in a row. Not only did I not see a biracial couple in every commercial I didn't see ANY biracial couples in a commercial. I think the one with the agenda is you.

Originally posted by WP4YT
What I DO have a problem with is them selecting actors based on skin color and not talent.

Flipping the tables here...
You just described Beverly Hills 90210, Twilight, Harry Potter, and a whole ton of other crappy shows and movie series which cater to adolecents and females who never stopped clinging to those late teen years no matter how dark the eye bags get or how many liver spots appear on their hands and decolatage.

For the most part I watch very few TV shows aside from sports. I do watch Vikings, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, Dead Files, and The Walking Dead religiously, however. Out of those shows, TWD is the only one which has African Americans on it and, for one of the very few times in my life, I actually do see a potentially racist pattern forming on the show. Within one or two episodes of introducing a new black male character, like clockwork they kill off the previously established black male character, establishing an almost Highlander-esque "There can be only one" situation. It is situations like that and programming with only one or two minority characters per show which causes ads like this to leap out at viewers. I'm gonna wager a guess that anybody watching sports when this ad came on never noticed the biracial aspect of the commercial. That's because most sports has a pretty deep saturation of black male athletes and white female cheerleaders vascilating between camera shots of the game and the sidelines, muting the brain to that aspect of those commercials. However, when you've got somebody sitting and watching The Jersey Shore or Desperate Housewives... differences stand out more.

And yeah, it probably was very intentional and probably was picked up by Cheerio's during the testing phases of the ad campaign. The executives probably leapt for joy over it because it gives them free publicity.

Totally racist. Just because the father's black he's got to watch for heart disease?!?!?!

General Mills must be run by the Klan!

----That's what's racist about it, right?-----

Hyperbolic absurd reactions to interracial couples is so played out (so 1940's) so I'll try for the biggest idiot on the hill title with a hyperbolic absurd reaction to heart disease among African Americans.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Yes, you have a lot of crazy people who are inflamed when people of different racial and skin colors are in a relationship or have a family. To be honest I do not see the problem. My dad is a brown man and my mother is white. They share similar background, but they happen to have different skin colors. To me race and color never was important. Because it felt like someone wanted to be different in a wrong way. This is just my two cents.

Demographics

If anyone even has the slightest clue about marketing or advertising this is what you have to understand. Basicaly what the advert means is Cheerios want both white people AND black people to buy there product. It is as simple as that.

It all comes down to which demographic buys the product and how much money they are willing to invest to gain X amount of return from it. They know exactly who buys the product and who doesn't. Thats all it is. Happens everywhere, from TV Shows to Movies, books, sports, everything.

As to the knee jerk reaction from the press about youtube, LOL dont they know what an internet is???, I mean come on. The funniest thing these days is watching corporations trying to adapt to the internet 30 years too late and watching them fail miserably, some companies do it very well [ old spice] other do it very badly.

reply to post by n00bUK


I think the racial implication is that black people are more susceptible to heart disease, which isnt racist but a medically proven fact. I wonder who thought this commercial was racist black folks or white folks. I personally think its ridiculous.

Originally posted by khimbar

Originally posted by WP4YT

Actually, I'm going to go with there is an agenda. How come all these commercials on TV ALWAYS seem to have biracial couples on it? It's not like there's a high percentage of them in the population.

How many were black man/white woman? It's always this way around, it's incredibly rare to see a black woman with a white man in adverts. At least here in the UK it is.

This alone makes me wonder if there's something to it. If there wasn't, why is it mostly this way round?

Im not complaining but black guys like to take the fat white chicks off the market. Black women dont usually go for fat white guys unless the guy is rich. I rarely see a hot black women with a fat white guy or a hot white women with a black guy... it happens but its rare... maybe its a genetic thing im not sure.