Survivor: Cook Islands To Separate Contestants By 'Race'

Tonight the Emmy Awards are happening in Los Angeles but the television world is buzzing about the latest reality television outrage. The latest (13th!) edition of the seminal reality television series Survivor (set in the Cook Islands) is going to separate the twenty contestants into four teams of fiveindividuals who (self?) identify as either Black, White, Asian or Latino. The names of the candidates as well as a group photo has been released.

Rebecca Borman, 24, makeup artist, Laurelton, New York;
Anh-Tuan "Cao Boi" Bui, 42, nail salon manager, Christiansburg, Virginia;
Sekou Bunch, 45, jazz musician, Los Angeles;
J.P. Calderon, 30, pro volleyball player, Marina Del Rey, California;
Cristina Coria, 35, police officer, Los Angeles;
Stephannie Favor, 35, nursing student, Columbia, South Carolina;
Billy Garcia, 36, heavy metal guitarist, New York City;
Adam Gentry, 28, copier sales, San Diego;
Nathan Gonzalez, 26, retail sales, Los Angeles;
Jenny Guzon-Bae, 36, real estate agent, Lake Forest, Illinois;
Yul Kwon, 31, management consultant, San Mateo, California;
Becky Lee, 28, attorney, Washington, D.C.;
Oscar "Ozzy" Lusth, 25, waiter, Venice, California;
Cecilia Mansilla, 29, technology risk consultant, Oakland;
Sundra Oakley, 31, actress, Los Angeles;
Jonathan Penner, 44, writer/producer, Los Angeles;
Parvati Shallow, 23, boxer/waitress, Los Angeles;
Jessica Smith, 27, performance artist/rollergirl, Chico, California;
Brad Virata, 29, fashion director, Los Angeles;
Candice Woodcock, 23, premed student, Fayetteville, North Carolina.

The latest installment debuts on CBS on September 14th. Last season Survivor separated teams by age and gender (Older Men, Older Women, Younger Men, Younger Women) and the ratings were disastrously low as the ambiguously heterosexual Aras Baskauskas walked away with the winner's $1 million dollar prize.

So the producer Mark Burnett came up with this "separate but equal" idea. However, Mad Professah notices some other differences in this cast. 9 of the 20 cast members come from the Los Angeles area (and another comes from San Diego and 2 more from Northern California). The average age is just over 31 years.

The reaction to the new of a segregated Survivor has been mixed, at best. My main complaint is the lack of nuance in the understanding of 'race' demonstrated by the format chosen of only four teams. I thought that after the PBS series Race: The Power of an Illusion from a few years ago, most Americans now know that the concept of race is socially constructed, that is, it is manufactured by societal and sociological forces which are historial, political, and cultural. This does not mean that race is merely a figment of our collective imagination and therefor is not "real"! However, a more intellectual understanding of the concept of race would not lead one to make up of teams consisting of "Black, White, Brown and Yellow" people! Oy vey!

My first objection is that you are leaving out a lot of "racial groups" by merely selecting these four to make up separate teams. My second objection is that you are also completely negating the presence of multiracial people. My third objection is with the selection criteria of the people into the racial teams. I can predict now that a lot of the fan/public commentary of this edition of Survivor will be about the authenticity of the racial representation of particular individuals as well as wild speculation and repetition of damaging stereotypes and preconceptions about physical and mental attributes of specific "races."

If I were going to make a suggestion for a segregated Survivor I would have a "White" team (of people who self-identify themselves as White), a team of people who self-identify themselves as "non-White," and possibly a separate team of people who self-identify as "multi-racial." My first thought was also to include a team of people who don't self-identify as any race (i.e. Decline to States) but I think this category is sufficiently problematic as to not be included. I would probably be fine with two teams: White and non-White and leave it at that.

What do you think? Are you gonna watch?