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Cheerios Ad Sparks Racist Response Online

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A Cheerios ad featuring an interracial family — a black husband, a white wife and a biracial child — inspired so many racist comments on YouTube, General Mills disabled the comments.

Cheerios stands by its ad, releasing a statement saying, “At Cheerios, we know there are many kinds of families, and we celebrate them all.”

Journalist  Mary C. Curtis writes in The Washington Post, "Who would have thought that breakfast cereal would trigger the latest racial battle line?"

Ultimately though, Curtis, who is part of an interracial family herself, does not find the backlash surprising — or take it personally.

"Feelings don’t always follow the law or the reality of the lives people now live," she writes. "The holdouts have to realize that the numbers are hardly going to start moving in the other direction in our increasingly diverse society."

Guest:

This segment aired on June 4, 2013.

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