For mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio, it’s a black-and-white issue: Cheerios is his favorite cereal.
In an e-mail to supporters, Chirlane McCray, de Blasio’s wife, rushed to the defense of a Cheerios ad featuring an interracial family that has caused a sensation — and backlash — on the Internet.
McCray, who is black, said that when she first met de Blasio, who is white, she was more concerned about their six-year age difference “than the color of his skin.”
“As an interracial couple, we sometimes felt conspicuous — which was painful,” she wrote. “If you’re in love with someone, you’re in love with someone . . . That’s why the Cheerios ad is so refreshing.”
Attached to McCray’s e-mail was a photo of herself, de Blasio and one of their sons eating breakfast with a large box of Cheerios prominent at the center of the table.
The ad has generated 2.1 million YouTube hits, most with positive comments. But some remarks were so inflammatory that Cheerios disabled the comments section.
McCray, who earlier spoke about her lesbian past, suggested there was a link between what Cheerios was doing and what her husband hoped to accomplish as mayor by “fighting for every New Yorker.”
She then provided a link to the de Blasio campaign Web site.