And we're supposed to root for which team?
The whites?
The blacks?
The browns?
The yellows?
Do executive producer Mark Burnett and the "Survivor: Cook Island" crew expect us to cheer on our own race now that they've decided to divide up the show's "tribes" by race and ethnicity this season—African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Anglos? Or do we root for another race, or no race at all? Are we supposed to root for the confirmation of racial stereotypes or bouts of interracial ugliness? Or for Special Olympics-like competitions where "Everybody's a Winner" or warm "Can't-we-all-get-along" moments of racial harmony?
In sum, what's the new etiquette for apartheid TV?
If the raw notion of sorting tribes by skin color isn't awful enough, there's the "Survivor" team's defense of the show's "interesting social experiment."
"The idea for this," Jeff Probst, "Survivor" host, has said, "actually came from criticism that 'Survivor' was not ethnically diverse enough."
Oh, that explains it. The show's producers couldn't simply take the five African Americans, five Asian Americans, five Latino Americans and five white Americans who will be on the Cook Island show and distribute them on teams. They had to choose up teams by race and ethnicity to achieve diversity. Professional sports should have thought of this decades ago.
Southern racists came up with more coherent rationales for Dixie's Jim Crow laws.
And, pray, what interesting social experiments might follow if "Survivor: Cook Island" succeeds in bucking up the reality show's sagging ratings? A "Survivor: Devil's Island" that lets Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and pagans battle it out?
Fear not, says Burnett, the race-based contest will not only increase the show's diversity, but improve race relations in the United States. "Maybe that taboo could disappear through this," he says.
Yes, that's it, this modern-day P.T. Barnum hopes to improve race relations in the United States by making Americans more conscious of race. He'll promote harmony among the races by setting race against race against race. And if "Survivor's" ratings rebound during the coming season—well, that's just the cost of continuing the work of Martin Luther King Jr. ("I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where game-show contestants will not be judged by the content of their characters but by the color of their skin.")
Almost half a century after King summoned Americans to judge one another on the content of our characters rather than our skin, U.S. race relations remain complicated and difficult, and sometimes even deadly. Does anybody but Burnett believe that some sleazy, race-based boob-tubery will do anything but make matters worse?
After all, it's not as if we haven't already tried sorting Americans by race. Racists did it for centuries, and it was King's crowning feat that he held up a vision of a color-blind society and helped America live up to its Declaration of Independence. More recently, as racists and bigots have moved underground, we've witnessed another kind of racial sorting. That's the admittedly well-intentioned sorting inherent in racial quotas and preferences and the crudest "affirmative action" programs, which have produced race-based resentments and a heightened color consciousness of their own.
Do we really need an hour a week of race-against-race fare? What conversations will this occasion in the privacy of our homes? What stereotyping? Will each race or ethnic group's viewers root, root, root for the home team?
My guess is that even Americans who strive to live out King's dream will be more, not less, race conscious and less, not more, edified after watching these teams go at each other for sport. Race consciousness begets race consciousness. Dividing up sides by race and ethnicity flirts with the primordial forces of tribalism: fierce and often destructive forces we've managed to corral with hard work and what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.
Now, for a few ratings points, "Survivor" risks giving new and dark meaning to the show's signature phrase: "The tribe has spoken."
David Reinhard
