The New Ethnic Survivor: Is TV Promoting Segregation?

Now I’ve got to be honest with you: I’m not a faithful Survivor-watcher, nor did I even watch the entire show last night. Or even most of it. Or half. It was more like ten minutes. But what I saw is enough. I watched several “teams” composed entirely of a single ethnicity try to make fires, or compete in some sort of challenge, or apparently cure headaches. For a while, I was feeling like I was back in college, where all the white kids had their sororities and fraternities, all the Asian kids hung out and spoke their own languages, all the Hispanic students and Indian students had their groups, and all the African-American people were one big clique. And my question is, why is this TV show promoting segregation and the fallacious attitude and idea that people of particular ethnicities work best with others of the same ethnicity? The new Survivor concept is divisive and detrimental to the furtherance of true civil rights and unity.

When it comes to racial bias and discrimination, I will be the first person to fight for the offended party. I can see that ethnic minorities have been grossly underrepresented in past seasons on Survivor. I would without hesitation support a truly ethnically diverse Survivor with equal representation from each ethnicity. However, I fail to see the benefit of separating the contestants according to their ethnicity and making each group compete against each other for the title of “Super-Race”. I mean, wasn’t that what Hitler was trying to establish?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Survivor seems to be reversing what the civil rights and integration movements accomplished. The only result that I see coming from such an endeavor as the show has taken on is the furtherance of racial stereotypes. If the white group fails to win, will it be because the members are too power-hungry to unite with one another? If the African-American group does not win, will it be said that they lacked the outdoor skills to come out on top? And if the Asians lose, will it be that they were not physically strong enough to pull through? I thought that our goal for the past half-century has been to work together as equal human beings and to recognize one another as competent equals as well.

Supposedly, what we’ve wanted all along is to be “color blind” but not “culture blind”, to identify one another according to our strengths, our personalities, our abilities and dreams and to acknowledge our diverse cultural backgrounds. Supposedly, the United States wants to be a true melting pot, a society in which all ethnicities live, work, and play together, bringing to the table their unique perspectives, but all striving towards the same goals and ideals. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Survivor is right – maybe what we really want is to be identified by the color of our skin or the country from which our ancestors came a century or two ago instead of the nation from which we ourselves come. And maybe Survivor is a testing ground to see which race is most likely to take over the world. Does anyone want to place bets?