Right on, brother man!

Joel Stein: Finally, Some Prime-Time Racism
Battle of the races on 'Survivor' places discussion
of stereotypes where it
belongs -- in the mainstream.
Joel Stein

September 19, 2006
LA Times

I'VE NEVER BEEN interested in "Survivor," but the
new, racist "Survivor" —
that, I was psyched about. If "Battle of the Network
Stars" made good TV,
weekly competitions between poorly fed "tribes" of
African Americans,
whites, Asians and Latinos were going to be awesome.
So, last Thursday
night, I got some brie and water crackers, put on a
J. Crew sweater vest and
settled down on the settee to root for whitey.

None of my white friends wanted to watch with me
because — although it was
fine for the other races — they felt it was
unbecoming for Caucasian
Americans to root for their own kind. I found that
condescending. Cheering
for the whites is no different from rooting for my
college football team,
for U.S. Olympic teams or for men to finish before
women in porn scenes. The
latter, unlike the men's Olympic basketball team,
never let me down.

But it turns out lots of people got freaked out
about this. As soon as CBS
announced this season's theme, leaders of the New
York City Council demanded
that the network abandon the idea, and GM,
Coca-Cola, Campbell Soup, Johnson
& Johnson and Febreze ended their advertising on the
series. You know you've
stumbled into a huge pile of it when even Febreze
walks away.

No one got upset in past seasons when the show used
gender and age to divide
people. But we've somehow decided that racial issues
can only be discussed
in books, college lectures, NPR and other mediums
that are so boring people
can't get riled up. Songs by Coldplay are probably
largely about race.

Unlike 30 years ago, when "All in the Family" and
"Chico and the Man" made
cutting jokes about race, we've set so many rules
about talking about skin
color that we rarely do it at all. "Survivor: Cook
Islands" isn't
trivializing race — it's just not avoiding it like
the rest of us. If there
really were a group of people stranded on a deserted
island, this is exactly
how things would go down. Just like in jail.

So I was pumped for some serious racial tension as
soon as the contestants
pulled up to the island. The giant old ship conjured
different images
depending on which team was on camera: a slave ship,
a makeshift raft from
the Dominican Republic, a boat full of Vietnamese or
an afternoon sailing
cruise to Nantucket. My team was going to rock.

Not only, to my delight, was my team the best
looking, but the whiteys
seemed to have a really fun attitude, joking and
bonding and having a great
time. A few minutes into the show, however — long
before any contests or
voting anyone off — something weird started to
happen. I started to turn on
my own people.

These white people were a little too preppy, too
frat-boy, too happy with
themselves. While other teams were fighting over hut
building, the white
folks were making toasts to each other over little
bits of coconut milk and
lying down to sleep half-naked and spooning en
masse, thrilled with their
total super awesomeness. It turns out I kind of hate
white people.

The black team wasn't doing it for me either, with
its sexism, infighting
and talk about representing and feeling each other's
vibes. They loved
themselves almost as much as white people do.

The Latinos were kind of likable and hardworking if
quiet, but those Asians
— they were terrific. In fact, better yet, they were
like me. They were
laid-back and self-effacing. There was a journalist,
a lawyer, a management
consultant — just like my friends. One of them even
went to Stanford four
years after I did. And they won the first contest
handily, even though their
chicken was stolen by the white people. White people
who probably didn't
even eat the feet or eyeballs.

I don't know if my feelings are because of the fact
that this is a
particularly nice group of Asians, or if Jews are
culturally more akin to
Asians than other white people, or because Asians
are a completely superior
race destined to rule the planet. All I know is that
the show is allowing me
to make these kinds of racist comments in public.

And I think that's good. Not just because, as CBS
argues, getting to know
these contestants will help dispel stereotypes. It
also will allow us to see
which stereotypes are true and discuss which
differences make us
uncomfortable. Maybe if we admit that race is a
factor — just like gender
and age — we'll be a little more honest with each
other. And maybe we'll
also realize that, if we're going to survive, we
really need to band
together against the yellow people.