By Odeisel

A husband and wife wake up in the fantasy world of Post Racial America. Their daughter, bright eyed and precocious, asks her mom about the actual heart-healthiness of a bowl of cereal. The mom gives her the thumbs up and the bright, yet mischievous child runs off, her dad covered with cereal; the heart healthy grains covering the left side of his chest. Very cute. And presumably fairly normal across the country. Cheerios decided to bring this scene to light with a subtle twist: the mom is white, the dad is Black and the daughter is bi-racial.

What a novel idea, to create a visual that actually reflects thousands of family situations across America. Unfortunately, there is a legion of idiot Americans who feel that their land of milk and honey is no place for race-mixing, despite Sally Hemmings and her descendants’ insistence on the contrary. Or maybe it’s only a cool when it’s President Grant and Olivia Pope. Either way, the savages took to the internet and noted their displeasure, so much so, that Cheerios had to disable comments on their Youtube page. Post- racial, indeed.

I’m fully aware that race, despite all efforts to imply otherwise is the central moral issue in the American narrative. It lies at the heart of every hot-button topic from immigration to healthcare reform to whatever else you can think of. That we can never actually come to the table and get to the heart of the issue is why it is so self-perpetuating.

It’s just a family eating cereal. A family that looks like so many others. It doesn’t look like a political statement and it isn’t part of some grand movement or conspiracy to force the idea down the throats of America. Breakfast, and a bit of a mess. Maybe if more people had what Cheerios is serving, it would be good for their hearts, too.