A youtube show called Kids React did an episode on the biracial Cheerios commercial where they showed the commercial to several children ages 7 - 13 and then interviewed them after about their reaction to the commercial.
Then they told them about the youtube comments on the commercial and discussed why that might occur and what could be done about it.
I’d like to know where they are located but it is still nice to see this level of disbelief that racism is still allowed to continue from our newest generation.
I’ve lived in and just outside of Boston for the last 30 years. Despite Boston’s reputation as a racist city I have rarely come across it (but then I’m white). I tend to think like the kids in the video - what??? and is this the 1950’s? I have heard stories from one of my friends (a black man) who said that he was regularly subjected to racist remarks when he was growing up in Boston in the 50’s and 60’s. I don’t doubt that there are still racists out there but it’s just not the norm anymore. IMHO, those people posting their nasty comments on facebook are not mainstream.
I like that Cheerios commercial, very cute and clever (Cheerios over daddy’s heart!).
I lived in Arizona for 16 years, where I rarely, if ever, observed any kind of racism (referring to racism against blacks only here). Then I moved to North Carolina, where I observe racism against blacks on a regular basis. I know a 20 year-old that recently refused to attend his (white) sister’s wedding because she was getting married to a black man. I was recently informed by someone else that “god separated the races for a reason” :rolleyes:. I hear similar things and the n word on a regular basis from different people. I just inform them that the rest of the country doesn’t really think this way anymore, and that this is part of the reason why the rest of the country looks at the South as ignorant hillbillies. So, my point is, that yes, the majority of the US isn’t nearly as racist (at least openly) as it used to be, the South has yet to catch up. It saddens me, and really boggles my mind.
I have two friends who live in North Carolina, one a white woman with four black/white kids and one a black woman with a black kid. Neither of them seem to think North Carolina is particularly racist and both have lived in other states (but then, the only other state the white one has lived in was Utah, but the black one has lived in several normal states). Not doubting your experience at all, but I always thought of SC as being the racist Carolina.
In any case, I’m glad I live in Seattle, where I would expect kids to react exactly like the kids in the video. There’s obviously plenty of racism here too, but I very rarely see it with kids, and I live in a very diverse area and have a biracial kid.
On a related (to discrimination) note, I was talking to my friend’s son, 13 year old Max. We were talking about how his friend Jake had to do a lot of chores around the house. Max said “well yeah, Jake’s mom’s are really strict”. He lives in New Hampshire, not the most liberal area, but he doesn’t bat an eye about the idea of having two moms. Actually, one of his best friends is a mixed race girl. I don’t think kids really care about race, sexual orientation unless they’re taught to.
Weird thing is, my daughter always thought same-sex relationships were weird, even though I never ever made it sound weird. I’ve never told her anything but that people of all genders like people of all genders. When she was younger she had a good friend with two moms, and it’s not like it BOTHERED her, but she definitely thought it was weird. That’s not the strange part though, the strange part is that since she was 12, she has identified as bisexual. So where did she get these ideas? Sure, she could have gotten them from other places in society, but she had these ideas LONG before she picked up any of society’s racist ideas, even though she’s biracial. I never knew what to make of it. Of course, now at 13 she’s 100% behind equality for everyone. But from preschool-age until a couple years ago, I don’t know what happened.
Well, I do live in the mountains, which I would expect is probably more backwards and hillbilly than, say, the research triangle. I know people that just got indoor plumbing in my generation.
Or, the people posting the nasty comments are Internet Tough Guys who totally think/feel that way but don’t express those feelings in public anymore. Because they have the Internet.
Her vocabulary changed. She didn’t need to be told that having two mothers was unusual, she was able to figure it out herself, but she just used “weird” instead of “unusual” or “the minority” or any of the equivalent expressions which she’d use now.