Okay, so you've all heard about the Cheerios ad with the biracial couple and the bigoted comments left at the video's page on YouTube. Blah Blah Blah.
You might have seen this video, created by Fine Bros., who specialize in producing "React" series of different demographics responding to viral videos (Kids React, Teens React, etc.). The video is a "feel-good" one: the kids watch the Cheerios video, laugh, explain what is funny, and then they are told that some people are angry about this video. The kids ask why. They are told it's because the parents are biracial.
Almost all the kids are shocked, and all of them find it stupid that
people would be upset by this.
Some of the comments are very perceptive: one kid mentions the "mob mentality," that when one nasty comment is left it can lead to a pile-on of nastiness. Another suggests that if you're wasting your time reading other people's comments on YouTube and then further wasting your time posting hate-filled comments, you need to get a life. Another makes the correlation between inter-racial and homosexual couples. Some of the comments are also moving, when they are asked if they have ever been discriminated against, and one or two of them admit they have.
The basic point of this video is to demonstrate that kids "get it," that we have to stop teaching prejudice, and respect everybody for who they are not for their skin color, etc. The unseen interviewers also ask what they think of Cheerios for making this commercial, and the fact that the kids all support Cheerios and thinks the company (General Mills) is "brave" for doing this even if it made people angry. (It's worth mentioning that the Cheerios ad is not the first major brand ad to feature a biracial couple.)
And it's in that set of questions that my eyebrows begin to go up in that Mr. Spock way.
Would the kids have thought Cheerios "brave" if they had not been told about the controversy? They reacted to the video without any thought to the fact that the mom was white and the dad Black. It didn't make a difference to them. Had it not been pointed out, it would have never been a big deal to them. It's a great thing that kids seem color-blind, and it's good that they seem to understand that racism is taught. But having introduced them to the idea of prejudice, will they see the society in a way that makes them more race-conscious? What if we actually really meant the notion of a color-blind society and let the kids be just kids without all the burdens of centuries of prejudice?
Yeh, I know, it's dream world. And when one of my liberal friends called into question the notion of celebrating various ethnic groups with weeks and months on similar grounds, I'd point out that she was living in a dream world too. We don't have White History Month because for centuries the dominant history in Western European and American textbooks has been White History. So I do get the point. But watching the kids react made me think there is a modicum of truth in what my friend was saying.
The other issue I observed with the kids concerned the celebration of Cheerios, and its maker, General Mills. What if, instead of talking about the biracial couple, the Fine Bros. interviewers mentioned that there were comments left by viewers condemning General Mills for using genetically modified ingredients that might contradict the notion that Cheerios is heart-healthy? What if they explained that some people believe that foods made with GMOs are unsafe to eat? What if they told the kids that the CEO of General Mills, believing his food is safe, opposes any labeling that would indicate that all his cereals are made with GMOs? What if they told the kids that there are boycotts of General Mills' cereals? Would they say Cheerios was brave, or would they call the company "chicken" for not allowing their products to be labeled?
I am not being flip here. (Also, in the interest of honesty: I don't formally boycott General Mills; I try to avoid non-organic food, but I'm no saint, and I still succumb to Cafe Ronald once in a while.) Race is a complicated issue in America, but if we're going to talk to kids about race -- and let me be clear, I think we have to -- we can also talk to kids about issues that affect their health. The questions that we ask -- standardized test preparers know this, or should -- often tell us more about the questioners than the answers the kids give. Let's also remember: the kids may not be thinking about race -- or about genetically modified foods -- but they certainly have seen enough commercials in their brief lives that they take all the underlining discourses about consumerism for as a given. They understand the basic grammar of a tv ad, and they know that buying stuff is "normal" in our society, just as for them, a biracial couple is "normal." And while race is a complicated issue, it's "easy" for us to talk about social problems in racial terms; we may not ever ever solve the problems stemming from race, but we do have conversations about it, even if some of the conversation consists of people asking "do we have to talk about race AGAIN???" Getting kids to see the foolishness of bigots opposing biracial couples is pretty easy; getting them to understand genetically modified foods may not be so, as it were, black and white.
And so it comes down not to those two notorious colors, but to the one we all understand: green. Fine Bros. knows it benefits from asking kids about race, because this video gets shared by everyone. (I found it posted on Facebook.) Cheerios gets a boost because "nice" people will want to show their support against bigotry and buy more of General Mills' GMO-laced cereals. YouTube is always happy to have more and more eyes on their pages. One kid says, when learning about the nasty comments, that perhaps YouTube could take down those comments, or maybe even shut down the whole site, "but that would be terrible!" Because after all, the kid loves watching videos on YouTube. And that, ultimately is the point.
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