I was a small boy when GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER came out on the big screen. I don’t recall seeing the movie, but I do remember the subject matter concerning many of the adults.
How could a young, educated, privileged white girl marry a ‘colored’ man? Oh, yeh, he was a medical doctor from an upstanding, hardworking family. This was big stuff 45 years ago.
The movie, though one of my all-time favorites, is dated. In many ways, it is a grand old history lesson of our country’s reality from that era.
This past Tuesday, Cheerios launched a commercial that has become a magnet for racism and pure hatred. I am floored. I know there are branches of racism out there, but I honestly thought we had grown past this.
I love the commercial! To be quite honest, I’d seen it several times and actually did not even notice. Why did I not notice? Who knows! I am a natural blonde. It was not until I heard some of the hostility toward the Cheerios’ commercial that I realized, while watching an episode of THE COSBY SHOW, that these television sitcom family members did not match up in color.
Heck, in my own birth family we don’t match in color! I am blonde and fair complected, while my baby brother is dark haired and darker complected – and we came from the same parents. I am, myself, the adoptive father of two sons who are not Caucasian – one son is Hispanic and Eastern Indian, and another Navajo Indian. It is quite obvious they are not my biological sons.
1967-2013… Geesh… how sad.
The Haasienda on Shroyer... 