When I hear all the criticism swirling around this season’s Survivor series, all I can do is laugh.
All over the Internet folks are steamed of the fact that this year’s Survivor series will be divided along racial lines. This means that these groups will be competing against each other.
Gasp! Clutch the pearls (as Cobb would say)!
“Doesn’t this network realize that what they are doing is promoting racism?” “This show works against all the gains made during the civil rights era.” “Why, this show should be canceled!”
(If you have noticed, the NAACP has strangely taken a “wait and see” approach on the show. As this article points out, maybe that is because the group’s president, Bruce Gordon is “…a longtime member of the network’s board.” [insert chuckle here])
Okay, to the point. I think the thing that really strikes me with this whole issue is the blatant hypocrisy of those that are voicing against it. Tell me what person does not pull for “their guy” based on race from time to time. I can’t tell you the amount of times I have seen this while looking at something competitive such as boxing. A person may not know a thing about the sport, but they do know who they want to win–the person that reflects their own race. The same goes for any other competitive event. How about beauty pageants? Please tell me with a straight face that race is not a factor amongst the viewing audience. Although I live in California, if I was watching a beauty contest with mostly white contestants and the only Black contestant was from Maine–I am pulling for her–not my state (and I know that I am not alone). The problem here is that people don’t want to admit that in many cases they themselves have used race in their personal biases because they think that they are maintaining a level of superiority over this issue of race.
Bias is not racism. Check the definitions of both.
What CBS has done with this series is to take the way folks really think about competitions when it involves folks of different races and placed it on the screen. Naturally folks would react negatively to this because it unearths some of our deepest feelings (enter the success of reality television).
Probably the funniest thing here is that even if the teams were not separated by race, many folks would STILL use race as a factor. Another funny point is that if the team of the race that is doing the most complaining “wins”, we will see headlines like “First All- African-American team on Survivor wins BIG!!” all over OUR media.
What is not funny is that I have just given this show free advertisment by mentioning it.
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