Last week, popular cereal maker Cheerios released a 30-second commercial for its heart-healthy breakfast depicting an interracial family. The Cheerios commercial has evoked a severe backlash of racism, bigotry, and pure hatred not from the commercial itself, but from the comments by viewers, prompting many to wonder what cuts it as politically correct these days.

The Cheerios commercial in question features a young, unsuspecting biracial girl with a Caucasian mother and African-American father. The girl then asks her mother if its true that Cheerios are good for peoples’ hearts to which the loving parent responds dutifully that they are. The girl then proceeds to dump the box of Cheerios on her father’s chest where she presumes the heart is located.

When I first saw the commercial, my first thought was “awww.” Not once did I consider some kind of racial undertone and maybe its just a personal lack of perceptiveness, but I didn’t even have an inkling of the fact that the parents were an interracial union.

The comments section on the commercial’s YouTube page has since been disabled with, according to AdWeek, “references to Nazis, ‘troglodytes’ and ‘racial genocide” and, according to NPR, “Too many black folks, not enough black folks.”

People need to understand that, A) racism under any circumstances is not okay and people should accept others for who they are no matter what; B) The nature of advertising dictates that agencies target certain demographics and seeing as how its 2013 and not 1861, interracial families are now a mainstay target and rightfully so; C)  “Great ad campaigns that feature minorities and interracial couples — such as the Cheerios commercial — are moving product for companies.” This point was made by the NPR article and its true, bolstered by the fact that conglomerates like Coca-Cola and McDonalds are very culture-heavy in their ad campaigns.

The real problem seems to be that the Cheerios commercial overlaps races unlike Coca-Cola or McDonalds, who target certain demographics hard but rarely intermingle.

How people can still act with such vile acrimony is beyond me. Sure those who commented on YouTube are protected by the shroud of anonymity offered by the internet and are therefore more likely to spew venom, but that people actually still think in this mindset is a scary notion for society.

What’s politically correct anymore? How can advertising continue if it can’t target touchy demographics? Why is it still touchy in the first place?