race

Maybe I’ve overlooked the full significance of the segregated Survivor season. Or, maybe people are giving it more credibility than it merits.
From BBC:

Officials in New York are campaigning to stop the broadcast of a new series of reality show Survivor which divides contestants into ethnic “tribes.”

City council officials are to stage a rally on Friday to urge New York-based CBS network to pull the 13th series of Survivor, due to air from 14 September… New York councillor John Liu told the Associated Press: “The idea of having a battle of the races is preposterous.

"How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?"

In a post- Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire world, I didn’t know people were still bothering to ask that question.

…Hispanics Across America founder Fernando Mateo called the move an “offensive and cheap trick” to boost ratings. "The participants will be held to the daunting and unfair challenge of representing an entire race of people," he said.

I think this is where I’m missing the outrage bus. I can’t take seriously the notion that any four people represent all the qualities and capabilities of an entire ethnicity - much less any four people who would be selected to be on Survivor.

[Mateo continued,] "What will it mean for a team - a race - to fail in a battle of wits and strength against another race?"

It will mean that the team lost. For that team’s race, it doesn’t mean shit. Let us not forget that we’re talking about Survivor here, a game so capricious that its "All-Stars" season was won by a featherweight sorority girl using the ingenious tactic of riding her boyfriend’s coattails.

On the other hand, there is something to the argument that the show will promote racial divisiveness. The reliable pundidiot Rush Limbaugh has already jumped on the Survivor story to use it as a launching pad for some of his typical bigotry, followed by an indignant denial that anything of what he said was racist. I don’t care to reprint what he said on my blog, but those who’d like to can read about it here.

I’m still of the mind that CBS and Mark Burnett should be given the benefit of the doubt. Calling for them to pull the show, as the New York officials are doing, is only going to solidify their resolve to run it and may indeed boost their ratings. Ultimately, I continue thinking that it’s all a tempest in a teapot. After a few episodes, I don’t see where this season of Survivor is going to look different than any of the past seasons.

It was revealed this morning that on the upcoming season of the CBS reality-TV warhorse Survivor, the contestants are divided into teams by race. Kind of adds a new layer of meaning to “The tribe has spoken,” doesn’t it?

Part of me feels like I should find this objectionable, but I just can’t get there. Really, my main thought is to give Mark Burnett credit for continuing to find new ways to promote that show. The first American season of Survivor aired in (a moment while I google…) 2000, which in terms of so-called “reality TV” history seems like an epoch ago. At least, it does to me. Yet here we are, and that show is still making headlines.

I watched the first three seasons of Survivor, lost interest, and then turned it on again for the All-Stars edition. Will the provocative premise of “Survivor: Ethnic Strife” be enough to make me tune in again? Hmm…. nah. Put it this way: it would take quite a buzz to make me curious enough to check it out (by “buzz” I mean word-of-mouth, not a half-pitcher-of-margaritas buzz - although that might do it, too). I’d probably watch if, for instance, they had a reward challenge where if the Latino team wins, they get to have Pat Buchanan and Hugh Downs serve them barbecue. A full barbecue, including dessert, AND do all the cleanup. In French maid outfits. If one of the other teams wins they get the same thing, plus they get to invite the Latino team.

I don’t see it happening, but even the thought of it is schadenfreude-licious.

So I’m talking to this guy I know the other day; I’ll call him John Callahan.

“D’ja hear?” John asks me. “Lockdown. All the jails are on lockdown again.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s really bad. All this racial violence is happening. What was it, only a few months ago when all of the mass brawls were happening at High Schools in L.A.? Those were the same thing - Latinos fighting Blacks. It’s escalating.”

John shrugged diffidently. “Ignorance!” he declared. “That’s all it is.”

“Whaddya mean?” I asked him.

“Well, you know,” he ventured, looking for affirmation. No, I didn’t know. “It’s like, people immigrate here, but they don’t bother to learn the language. Then they complain about not having anything, or being poor, or whatever. They get all pissed off and have riots. It’s because of ignorance. They don’t want to assimilate to how things are in this country, how we do things, or speak our language.”

“Mmm… aaaaahIIIdon’t think I agree with you there,” I responded.

“What? Why not?”

“It’s just…” I hesitated, being careful not to go off. “It’s not that simple. There’s always been conflict in America between different ethnic groups. We’re all immigrants, or we all were at some point… unless you’re a full-blooded American Indian.” Which he was clearly not.

“No,” John replied, “like, you and me - when our forefathers came here, they spoke English. You know? They started the country. So if you’re going to come here, you learn to speak English, that’s all.”

I couldn’t resist. “Your and my ancestors - your last name is Callahan, you’re at least part Irish, like me. My Irish immigrant ancestor came to New York during the Potato Famine, which is a pretty typical Irish American background. Yours too, about that time?”

“Yeah, like 1850, they came to Boston, I think,” he confirmed.

“OK, right. The thing is, when those ancestors of ours came over, they didn’t speak English. I mean, maybe a few phrases, but in general, they didn’t. Irish peasants spoke Irish Gaelic. And they didn’t just all of a sudden start speaking English, either - they mostly lived in ethnic ghettos and just talked to other Irish immigrants.”

John didn’t say anything.

“I’m just saying, is all. Things don’t change that much.”

I’m not kidding myself that I changed his mind or anything. Hopefully I at least said something he’ll think about. And, I held off pointing out that the whole thing was a case of the pot calling the kettle ignorant.

That might sound pompous, but I don’t think I am. I try to hold people to the same standard I hold myself with regard to wisdom, i.e., I’m wise enough to realize that there are a hell of a lot of things that I don’t know.