‘Survivor’ is an easy target for racial outrage

Yet that acceptance is apparently a far cry from our being able to publicly admit our own complicity in our self-segregation. Like the proverbial high school cafeteria, where jocks, drama kids, Asians, and whites occupy separate lunch tables, most Americans co-exist in their own ethnic comfort zones, despite the increasing rates of brown, tan, and dark-skinned emigres who continue to arrive.

Hence the surface outrage over Mark Burnett’s decision to divide Survivor teams by race, which strikes me as “lip service” at best, chest-thumping hypocrisy at the worst. Sure, Mark Burnett is one cynical man to have chosen this strategy. But he also seems to recognize that many Americans, while usually presenting a racially tolerant face in public, continue to hold tight to ancient stereotypes in private:  How else to explain the vast, persistent gaps between America’s predominantly-white corporate and political leadership, and the growing numbers of brown-skinned hoi polloi, struggling in the day-to-day to pay their rents, feed the kids, save a few nickels?  

It’s easier for us to get outraged by an upfront display of tribalism than to admit that we prefer our children hang out with “the right kind” of peers, i.e., kids who look like us, live in “safe” neighborhoods, and who’s parents earn “respectable” incomes.

At the same time, it will be interesting to see if the ratings for this gambit bear out some critics contention that the show’s racially segregated theme will appeal to Americans’ worst natures. If only AC Nielsen, the television ratings group, could devise a way to count viewers,  just for this new Survivor season, by racial ethnicity. Better yet, maybe CBS can launch a contest, taking place concurrently with each broadcast, to see which ethnic group watches the show most. Why, they could even come up with a stereotypical racially specific prize for the group with the highest viewing numbers: a chopped and dropped  low rider, if it turns out that more Hispanics watch each week; or a bulked up SUV with 22-inch rims should black viewers win. (Of course, they’d have to get a company other than General Motors to front the prizes.)

But seriously:  We can fully expect television critics and industry reporters from various news organizations to fan out across the land as the first few episodes air, pestering local black, Asian, Latino and white families to provide first-hand accounts of their reactions to the broadcasts. 

My question for these lucky critics (and for their editors) is:  What is the ethnic make-up of your particular professional tribe? And when is the last time you questioned your boss about integrating your workplace?

Amy Alexander has written commentary for the Washington Post, NPR and The Nation, and is co-author of “Lay My Burden Down: Suicide and the Mental Health Crisis Among African Americans.”

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