"Survivor" and diversity

Hmm, this is interesting:

LOS ANGELES - Get ready for a segregated "Survivor." Race will matter on the upcoming season of the CBS show as contestants will be divided into four tribes by ethnicity. That means blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians in separate groups.

Well, it will lead to more than the token African-American, Latino, and Asian players as there have been in prior seasons.  And it is true that in one or two past seasons, the tribes were aligned by gender.  Whether this is a good idea remains to be seen.  It appears that there has been some creativity in casting, so that the players aren't being totally cast by stereotypes (though I'm still waiting to see an Asian "barrista").

UPDATE: Some pointed analysis by Prof. Marc Hill at Blackprof.com on this:

Many critics have blasted the show for promoting racism through its racially segregated teams. Such a belief is undergirded by a wrongheaded liberal approach to race that eschews any recognition of racial difference. While I don’t believe that dividing teams by race is fundamentally racist, the claim that this show is an “experiment” that can tell us anything meaningful about race is spurious. Like FX’s Black/White, Survivor places relatively privileged people (check the list of participants) in contrived circumstances that don’t approximate the conditions of American social life.

Comments

[ana.log]

it's definitely an interesting social experiment, but something about it seems creepy to me. pitting people against each other by race -- making the other races "the enemy" -- is definitely going to bring out the worst in everyone.

[EBuz]

Wow, that's going to be interesting. I hope that the teams' competitive spirits (which may involve both bonding/pumping up your own team as well as trash talking the other teams) neither approaches nor gets confused with racism.

You know, I heard they thought about having an all-lesbian team as well, but then decided it wouldn't be fair because the team would be too powerful. No, I'm kidding, but see, that's just the kind of competitive spirit that I'm talking about! I hope the competitors can find a way to pump each other up like that without crossing the line.

[Lugosi]

Well, I think we all know which team Senator George Allen will be rooting for, and it ain't the macacas.