That freakin' cheerios commercial.

So two people told me directly about this commercial. I had seen it on four or so other blogs before that. A couple-three people posted about it on facebook, and I've seen it discussed on two tv shows. Watch it below, if you haven't seen it already:




So here's what I think about the whole Cheerios interracial couple commercial. Get ready for the bullet points.

--Are we surprised that people leave racist comments on videos on youtube? If so, I don't know why.

--This reminds me of racist hunger games tweet Johnny that I wrote about in this post. Wow, you don't have a problem with interracial marriage? How forward thinking of you. If you would like to take this opportunity to feel morally superior to some trolls on the internet...knock yourself out.

--Who broke the story that Cheerios had to close down the comment section on the video? Was it Mr. Cheerio? Call me cynical, but they have gotten a truckload of free publicity from this story. I'm sure they're familiar with how youtube works (see two dashes point #1)--is it possible some ad guy/gal was thinking a couple steps ahead and saw where this might lead for them?

--As far as my personal feelings about the commercial: It's fine. I have not written about this here before (mainly because I didn't want it to affect my street cred,) but I am in an interracial relationship myself. I am glad that George can see a kid that looks like him on television. But I think their next commercial needs to be hot white dad/hotter black mom--so George can really feel like his family is being represented ;)

--Yes, there are all types of families. Which ones should get the mainstream corporation commercial treatment? Interracial couples? Gay couples? Polygamous families? Polyamorous families? Families where one partner is old enough to be the parent of the other partner? Single teen mothers? Couples where the mom is taller than the dad? Families where everyone is obese? Where someone is blind? Where the family lives in a trailer? A public housing project? Where they're homeless? Some of these and not others? Why?

--The first place that I saw this commercial was an online magazine whose target audience is young black women. One of the conversations going on in the comment section was that commercials like this one serve to help destroy the black family and discount the idea of black love. I put it in italics only because it's an actual thing/concept that I am assuming most of my readers are not aware of. Now that the cat is out of the bag, I think I may write a whole 'nother post (or several) about interracial relationships, but I want to just stick to the commercial for now. I did this bullet point because I think it would surprise some white people to know that some black people aren't super excited about the chance to be featured as member's of a white person's family.

--Which leads me to my final two dashes point. We need to be very wary of the we're just like you, strategy. MLK seemed to be a fan, and I feel like the current push around gay rights seems to have strong elements of this as well. One thing that was so striking about this commercial was that it was so normal. And by normal, I of course mean that it could have been an all-white family with no changes. Because isn't that who gets to be called normal--white people? This whole accept us because we're just like you--we dress like you, talk like you, think like you, waste perfectly good boxes of cereal like you way of thinking is dangerous for at least two reasons. First, it opens up members of your group (of which there are usually many,) that don't conform to this mainstream way of behaving to what appears to be legitimate ridicule and exclusion. Second, it accepts without question the idea that the dominant culture's way of doing everything is the best way. This just reinforces the idea of supremacy that we are supposedly fighting against. White people have had some great ideas (like being on time,) but they haven't figured out the best way to do everything. Some of their ways of functioning are just as destructive as other groups. So instead of trying to fight for your slice of a dysfunctional pie, change the recipe so by the time you get your piece, it already tastes delicious.

You deserve to be treated with dignity and respect because you are a human being, period. Don't forget that.

So those are my thoughts on the Cheerios commercial. As always, I would love to hear what you have to say--so feel free to leave me a comment.

Party in the U.S.A.

A little story for your Friday...

Remember this time when I wrote about the little white girl at storytime who had some words she wanted to share about my hair?

Fast forward to today. George and I needed to get out of the house because the weather had sucked the past couple of days and we were both about to go stir cuh-razy.

I was trying to figure out where we could go/what we could do. I decided lunch would be good. Sometimes we'll go through the drive thru, and then I'll park and move George up to the front seat where we can enjoy our lunch with a/c and our favorite tunes.

On our way, I realized this restaurant had a play area, so we could eat inside and afterwards, George could run around and burn off some steam before his nap. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

While we were having lunch, I realized I was a little apprehensive about going to the play area, because I didn't want something like this to happen. Even though he's almost 3, I have done a pretty good job of keeping him in a little bubble where pretty much everyone he encounters either loves him, or thinks he is really, really cool. But I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that bad things are going to happen to my kid no matter what, and since I don't parent every kid in the world I just have to accept it, and try to give George the tools to handle things on his own.

So we're in the play area and we've been there for about 1 minute when this little white girl comes up to me. It wasn't the same girl from storytime. I later found out her name was Olivia and she was 3.

So Olivia comes up to me and skips the normal "Hi, how ya doin'?" and just says,





"I like your hair."

Thanks Olivia. 'Precinate it.

And that my friends, is how you give a compliment. Try it today! I bet you can make someone smile.

My reaction to Brad Paisley and LL Cool J's song Accidental Racist.

So this song is being talked about a lot on different shows I watch and different blogs I read. I haven't read the blog posts, because I didn't want my own opinions to be influenced by what other people were saying. But from what I've heard on my shows, the song is not getting a very positive response. How about you all just listen to it, and then we can go from there. [Edited to add: it looks like the song keeps getting taken off of youtube. Which doesn't make any sense because if we're supposed to listen for ourselves to make up our minds, we need to be able to hear the song, amirite? Anyhow, if you want to read the lyrics, you can click here.]




Ok, it's not the best song I've ever heard. But let's start with the good stuff. [Pro tip: whenever you're giving constructive criticism, always start with the stuff the person has done right.]


--This song is an example of what I was talking about in my last post, about how white people need more truth and black people need more reconciliation. LL definitely goes for the reconciliation (R.I.P. Robert E. Lee) and Brad does acknowledge that the South has a troubled history (not as much as I would like, but we'll get to that in the next section.)

--Both guys make good points that they are guilty of judging people based on how they look. This is something that people of all races are guilty of, and the world would be a better place if everyone made a conscious effort to do it less.

--I appreciate Brad saying that he wears the confederate flag, but does not intend for it to be racist. I still don't fully understand this, but maybe I understand it a little better after listening to this song. Apparently he and LL are actually friends, and if you asked me before if someone who wore a confederate flag would have a black friend, I would have said No.

--I think they both deserve some credit for even putting the song out. Race is a topic that seems to be spoken about in bursts by the larger society (examples: here, here and here.) There is usually a big brouhaha, a lot of criticism, and then the incident in question just fades away. Brad Paisley felt the issue was important and so he decided to make a song about it. This is not something that many white artists do. Can you name another song put out by a well-known white artist that has to do with racism? Let's say in the last five years or so.


Okay, let's move on to the opportunities for improvement [Pro tip#2: call stuff that isn't that great Opportunities for Improvement]

--I heard Brad say in an interview something like, "Our country is still in its adolescence when it comes to dealing with issues of race." So, it would make sense then that a song written about it would be something of an oversimplification of the issues.

Yes, race issues are about slavery, but they're not completely about slavery. It's also about all the other things that are related to slavery that have happened since then. It's about the fact that there was an opportunity immediately after the war to rectify the situation, and it wasn't taken--by the same men that Brad seems to be celebrating when he wears the Confederate flag on his chest.

--The chorus talks about being caught between Southern pride and Southern blame.

While I was making our oatmeal this morning I thought, Why doesn't he say Southern shame instead of Southern blame? It would still rhyme.

And then I thought, Can you be ashamed of something that you didn't actually do? Then I realized if you can be proud of something you didn't do, then it would follow that you could also be ashamed of things you didn't do.

I understand that the blame comes in because he is talking about the black/white dynamic, and he's saying that black people blame white people for things that white people had no control over.

But I think the reason that I would have liked him to use the word shame is because I think on some level, I just need to know that he really understands the enormity of the situation.

If you're going to be proud of the good things about the South, then you need to be ashamed and embarrassed about the bad things about the South. Because if you just try to gloss over the bad things, it makes me think that you don't really think they were that bad. And if you don't think the things from the past were that bad, you're definitely not going to think that things now are bad, because things now are better than they were then.

Like he says, It ain't like you and me can rewrite history and then later, we're still payin' for the mistakes that a bunch of folks made long before we came. Both of these are true sentences. But the first line, he's talking to me as a black person, like we have to work together to move forward. I get it, I'm down.

But then when he talks about the bunch of folks line it's like, No Brad, it wasn't a bunch of folks, it was a bunch of white folks. Why can't you just say that?

A bunch of white folks did some stuff to a bunch of black folks and now a hundred plus years later, white folks as a whole are in a much better position than black folks, even though it's not legal to do that bad stuff anymore. What's up with that?

I don't think I've said this before here, but I think a parallel can be made between how white people in the United States feel about slavery and about how non-Jewish Germans feel about the Holocaust. Of course they are not completely the same, because the Holocaust was more recent, and people were being killed, not enslaved.

But I would imagine it's similar because you have these ancestors, that you want to honor and look up to. But at the same time you have to reconcile that they did some really f-d up things (or just stood by while f-d up things happened.) Why did they do that? Were they just going with the flow? Were they evil? Were they preoccupied with stuff in their own lives? Did they just not think critically about all the things that they had been taught about why it was okay to treat their fellow human beings in such an inhumane way?

I'm just speculating here. Because I haven't lived a long time with this label of oppressor, I don't really know what it's like. But I do know that when/if you apologize for something, you can't at the same time minimize what you're apologizing for.

So, I'm not really willing to say RIP Robert E. Lee just yet. But I am willing to give props to Brad Paisley, and to tell him that I truly believe that his intentions are good. If he is really interested in talking more and thinking more about race, I would invite him to read this post--I think it's an excellent place to start.

So what do you think, readers? Let me know in the comments.

Why black people and white people can't get along.

I've been in a funk since before I wrote my last post. The funk came, then it went away, then it came back, and now it's gone again. I think that is typically how it works (at least with me anyways.) I was trying to think about what was causing it, and as far as blog related reasons, I came up with a couple ideas.

I am bummed because Google is planning to get rid of Google Reader this July. I think that is a way that a lot of my readers use to track this blog, and I know that I use it to follow a ton of other blogs that I read. Also, ever since Facebook changed the way they display posts from pages (in an effort to get page administrators to pay,) the number of people that have liked my facebook page that actually see what I share on Facebook has gone way down.

Am I whining? Probably. But what's that saying? Whining will set you free? Yeah, I think that's it...

So if you're a fan on facebook, know that the more that you comment or like my posts that you do see there, the more likely you are to see other things I post. And if anyone has a good (free) alternative to Google Reader they'd like to tell us about, please leave me a comment. Finally, if you want to sign the petition to try and save Google Reader you can click here.

Ok, onto the race and inequality stuff. I have to say for the record that I do believe that black and white people can get along. Some already do on a small, individual friendships level. But if we're talking on a societal level, I just think that it will take a lot of work. Like, putting a man on the moon amount of work. But I picked that title because I think that it is something that an internet user interested in race might search for, and also because I have a little story from my life that I think will help illustrate why some people might think that we can't.

So, in keeping with the making sure our kid's not a weirdo goal of parenting I wrote about here, my husband and I decided to enroll our son in some toddler music classes. They're once a week and we sing songs, bang on drums, all the usual toddler music class stuff. Sometimes the teacher (I'll call him Dave,) lets the kids strum his guitar.

So our son was strumming Mr. Dave's guitar. I realize now I never made up a name for our son. Let's call him George.

Little George was strumming Mr. Dave's guitar. Oh, I should mention that Mr. Dave is white and all the other kids and parents are white too. But you probably already knew that, right?

So George is strumming the guitar, and Mr. Dave says, "George, you have great rhythm!"

Mr. Dave didn't say that to any of the other kids in the class. But it is certainly possible that in addition to being the cutest and most charming participant in the room, George is the most musically inclined as well.


But one of the first things I thought when I heard Mr. Dave say that was, "Oh, you're just saying that because you think that all black people are great at dancing and music and have great rhythm, don't you--Mr. Dave,?!?!!" ::grumble grumble:: white people.

Ok, I am exaggerating; I didn't think all that. But I did think that I was 99.99% sure that Mr. Dave just said it because it was true, without any racial undertones. And if you asked Mr. Dave, he would most likely say that he was 100% sure that he said it because it was true and without racial undertones.

But the reality is there is the .01% percentage in my mind that there was another reason for saying it. And the other reality is that even if Mr. Dave did think there was a possibility that there was a racial element to the comment, he wouldn't admit it, because that would open him up to being labeled a racist because the limited education that he has received about race as a white person is to say that he never sees or notices race (even though he has functioning cones in his eyes,) and to no matter what--avoid being called a racist at all costs.

And that my friends, is why we have such a hard time getting along. A different black person (or me on a different day in a different mood,) might have interpreted Mr. Dave's comment in a different way. And even if we're not talking about rhythm, we could have been talking about athletic ability or being punctual or being articulate or being aggressive or being loud or being exotic or any number of other things. It's like black people have a completely different frame of reference that they use to filter all the stimuli that they receive from the world. The was that racist? filter.

And, at the same time, there is little to no chance that Mr. Dave would ever admit there was a racial element to his comment, even if he knew there was. Because white people's filter is set up where they can't or don't want to entertain the entire race question. They don't want to examine the messages that they receive from the outside world about race, they don't want to admit the negative beliefs that they hold (for whatever reason,) about black people, and they see all these problems around them that seem to disproportionately affect the black community, but there is a hesitation to have an honest dialogue about what the causes of these problems are. Because when most white people are honest, they get called racist.

It's like we've got these two diametrically opposed ways of looking at the world. And nothing is ever going to change until we can both start to see things a little more from the other filter. It's like I said in one of my earliest posts on this blog: white people need a lot more truth, and black people need a lot more reconciliation.

So that's my story. George has finished watching Sesame Street, so now we've got to go and listen to Pandora while we get ready for the day. You know that I want to hear what you think, so as always--feel free to leave me a comment.

Taylor Swift's Revenge: Part II

Something real quick before we get to Taylor Swift. They are in the middle of picking a new Pope, and I just want to say that if they pick a Pope of color this time around, it will be further proof that they give a position of leadership to a black or brown person when everything has gone to crap/is about to go to crap. Exhibit A: Barack Obama.

I heard this on The Colbert Report a few nights ago, but you can ask my husband, and he will verify I said it to him well before we ever saw that show.

Just wanted to put that out there. Not really long enough for it's own blog post, but too long for a tweet on twitter.

My last post was about Taylor and one of her more popular songs, and how said song illustrated the idea that even when in a seemingly one-down position, people have a tendency to be cruel to those that have been cruel to them. If you need a refresher or didn't get a chance to read it, you can click here. And the photo above is what I found when I went on google images and typed Taylor Swift and Pope. I think it might be photoshopped. Okay, moving on.

I said I was going to tie her song back to race and inequality, and here goes...

I wonder if part of the hesitation for white people around making concrete steps towards reparations for black people, is this idea that if white people do that, the black people will get more power, and then try to exact some sort of revenge towards the white people. And I'm not just talking about writing mean songs.

If the conversation about reparations is never had, then there is never an acknowledgment that something despicable enough to warrant reparations was done, so we can just kind of avoid the whole topic.

Maybe at this point you are asking, What are reparations? I am not an expert on the subject, but the general idea is some sort of repayment or investment in the black community to apologize for/alleviate the effects of the damage done by slavery and Jim Crow.

Have you heard of 40 acres and a mule? When the slaves were freed after The Civil War, there was some talk of giving each adult male former slave some land and an animal help him farm it. That never happened, I guess they decided sharecropping and mass incarceration was a better plan. I have also heard free college education, massive government spending on social programs, and direct cash payments also mentioned. I have wondered before if some black people that receive welfare see it as a form of reparations that they they are entitled to. Is that my class bias showing, or just an astute observation? Who knows.

I had plans to talk about something else this blog post, so I don't want to stay on this reparations topic too long. For me, I think a legitimate claim can be made for receiving them. At the same time, I don't think the amount that I would consider fair if we're talking direct cash payments, would ever be considered by the federal government. Plus, when you look at the current state of the US economy and the reality that many white people are struggling as well, I really wonder how it would ever be adopted.

Look at how upset some white people get at affirmative action (an idea that may or may not help black people,) and tell me how we get from that, to those same white people being fine with hundreds of millions/billions of dollars actually being spent specifically to help black people.

Ok, let's move on to a less-sensitive topic: Black Power. My white, gay friend (we'll call him Neil,) asked on Facebook what book his friends were currently reading. I didn't answer. I saw Neil a few days later and told him that I didn't answer because I was reading this book:



If you can't see the picture, the book is Blueprint for Black Power by Amos Wilson. It's 900 pages long. I told Neil I didn't want to write that on his post, because I didn't want people to get "the wrong idea." I also asked him what he thought a 900- page book called Blueprint for Gay Power would be about.

I will say that I am on page 650-ish, and the author has not said Kill Whitey once. His main premise seems to be that in order for black people to move up in the world, it all comes down to economics. Black people should put their money in black-owned banks, and shop with black-owned businesses. They should also start their own businesses. He spends little to no time talking about gangs, out of wedlock births, or crime in the inner city. Wilson seems to believe that all of these social ills would be solved if the economics were taken care of and people had well-paying jobs.

He says at the beginning of the book that there have been a number of theories about why white people have been/are racist (cold climate of Northern Europe being one,) but that they can all be summed up by one explanation: because they can be. If black people get economic power, white racism becomes somewhat irrelevant to the whole conversation.

So here are my questions for you, dear readers:

What does Black Power mean to you?

Is a black person preferring to spend money at a black-owned business vs a white-owned business reverse racism ?
What about preferring to live around black people? Or date and marry black people?

I think it's interesting that in a lot of ways we've been supposedly moving towards this ideal of color-blindness, but the inequalities continue to exist along color lines. What are the reasons for that?

Would you be willing to go out of your way to support a black-owned business, in an conscious effort to remedy an injustice? Why or why not? Tell me if you're black or not when you answer this question too, please.

What are the reasons for there being such a focus on charity and welfare (things that do little to nothing to actually improve people's conditions,) and less of a focus on things that can actually help people be more self-reliant?

We've also got the topics of reparations and the new Pope to discuss. Oh, and if you're gay, what a Blueprint for Gay Power might look like.

Before I end, I want to address my statement above about people getting the wrong idea about my current reading selection. I have been writing this blog for a long time, and I know that it can be easier to read about things like me being followed around in stores or how the black model is often on the side, not the center. But topics like black power and reparations are important discussions to be had as well.

People may make judgments or assumptions about me because of my choice of reading material, and they are free to do that. What is most important to me, is that I am honest and true to myself. I think you should be honest and true to yourself too, because that is the only way that we as humans can evolve and grow, whether it is in our personal lives or as a larger human society.

You know I love your comments, so if you have some answers to my questions, or just some thoughts you want to share, lay 'em on me.