Backlash to the Past

Recent events point to a backlash against the progress American society has made in terms of accepting nontraditional families and gender roles.

Despite the growing support for marriage equality, there have been a series of gaybashing incidents in NYC. A cute Cheerios commercial featuring an interracial family has received numerous racist comments on YouTube (so many in fact that YouTube had to shut down the comment section). Fox commentators Lou Dobbs and Eric Erikson went on a sexist rant in reaction to a study showing 40 percent of American households had a main female breadwinner. Both said this was the end of civilization, against science, and that it was not reflecting nature where males are dominant and females are submissive. Megyn Kelly, who I normally loathe, took both misogynistic morons to task. "Who died and made you scientist-in-chief?" she asked Erickson. Greta von Susteren wrote on her blog (I hesitate to call it a blog, it's more like a tweet):

"Have these men lost their minds? (and these are my colleagues??!! oh brother… maybe I need to have a little chat with them) (next thing they will have a segment to discuss eliminating women’s right to vote?)"

BTW, lionesses do most of the hunting for prides, so there goes the nature argument. Also, Mr. Erickson, if we are supposed to follow nature and model our behavior on animals, which animals? Should we be like lions and have women travel around in packs with one or two men and the male can have sex eight times a day with whichever female is in heat at the time?

I really find it amazing there would be such vehemence against the Cheerios commercial  (I'm also writing about that because the last time I wrote about an interracial commercial, I got the most hits in the history of this blog.) The spot consists of a little girl asking her mom if Cheerios are good for your heart. The mom says yes and then the dad wakes up from a nap with Cheerios all over his heart. The mom is white and the dad is black. What's the big deal? It's 2013.

Wake up, racists, homophobes, and sexists. America was never all Leave It to Beaver. Sure there were families like that, but not all. As the mother in Ragtime sings, "We can never go back to before."