Politics Gets Its Own Cheerios Ad

By Keli Goff, theRoot

The black son of a white candidate tackles stop and frisk in a campaign ad.

Earlier this year, Cheerios generated extensive media attention — and countless racist comments online — for becoming the first major American brand to feature a mixed-race family in a television advertisement. Now an ad for a political campaign is poised to be just as groundbreaking, and potentially controversial.

This weekend television advertisements began airing starring the teenage son of New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio. De Blasio is white; his wife, Chirlane McCray, is black; and their son, Dante, sports a sizable Afro in the ad, in which he makes the case for why he believes that his father is the best candidate for mayor.

You can watch the ad [below.]

While he touches upon a number of issues, including affordable housing, the ad’s most powerful moment comes when he talks about his father’s position on stop and frisk. The controversial practice has drawn extensive criticism from civil rights advocates who point to studies showing that the New York City Police Department disproportionately stops young, black and Latino men as proof that the practice is inherently discriminatory. The practice has been under renewed scrutiny now that the issue of racial profiling has sparked national conversation in the wake of the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida and President Obama’s acknowledgment of his own experiences with racial profiling.

Learn how the author was reminded of all the young black men who face such issues every day.

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