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This morning, the City Council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus protested the upcoming season of CBS reality stalwart, Survivor, which has split its four tribes up by race - Asian, black, Hispanic, and white. City Councilman Robert Jackson, the caucus' chairman, said, "We are going to call on CBS to pull the plug on this... I'm hoping that the experiment fails so they know that the people of this great country are above this race-baiting-type situation." Fat chance CBS will take it off the air, as the gimmick controversy will only give them higher ratings and an even bigger lead-in for CSI on Thursday nights. Hell, we're even back to being interested in Survivor now. And City Councilman John "Media Minute" Liu said, "The idea of having a battle of the races is preposterous. How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?" Um, it's called "I Can't Believe Fox Has the Number 1 Reality Show," we think - that Mark Burnett is always out for blood!
Will you be watching? Here's some info on the Cook Islands, where this Survivor is being held. And given that a fair number of this season Survivors are from NYC (Becky, Nathan, Sekou, Sundra, Yul, and Billy), we would suggest a Survivor with teams split up by people from different boroughs!
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Next they should do straights vs gays.
Do people still watch this show?
I find it funny that I can't determine the race of about 75% of the contestants from that picture.
Seriously, the last, desperate gasp of an irrelevant show.
I agree the show's a bad idea, but I think it falls outside of the council's juridiction
survival for the bloggers, that oughta be some shitty TV programming with huge ratings.
PLS. feed us more ignorance, cuz we just don't get stupid enough onour own. Menatime, let's keep browing the daily reads for more juicy bits...onto Gawker...ahh!
Who the hell does CBS think they are? State Farm Insurance?
bwwahahahaha!
I love how Ambluance Chaser Liu is gonna rally all the racially divided caucuses in the City Council to do the protest.
What a damned hypocrite.
What exactly do you mean by Liu being a hypocrite?
How is he an ambulance chaser when he's not a lawyer nor has anything to do in the legal or medical field?
You don't like the guy, why don't you just say it?
Jews Vs Muslims Vs Christians Vs Scientologists for next season.
I have to agree with Vinny on the ambulance chaser thing. This guy will show up wherever there is a populist story that can get his name in the paper... then he goes back under his rock... forget about any useful legislation out of him though.
i don't get whats so bad about this?
Democrats know how to waste time as much as Republicans. Bring back the Freedom Fries.
Did they have to pick all fat brothers and sisters? You know they won't win now...
Don't these city council idiots have something more important to occupy their time? Like things that actually pertain to their job.
It is a TV show. No jurisdiction.
Exactly what is the big deal?
divided by race... so what?
Races tend to divide themselves anyway.
I suspect it is all about the fear that it may actually support some stereotypes.
Because, I guess it would be the end of the world if a stereotype is actually shows it may actually be based in reality.
Why don't african-American men get all bent out of shape and complain about the sterotype of a big schlong? I guess they like that one. So it is OK and they can use it.
We all know that one is untrue...
I'm with K. This is no big deal. Color blindness is a thing of the past -- why freak out just because a race is mentioned? I think it's much more hypocritical to form racially "balanced" teams and pretend like it was unintentional. We all say one race is not better than the other, so isn't this the fairest way to compete?
How bout the Crips and the Bloods for next year.
I once knew a black man, his weener quite small but he didnt complain during the BBQ.
I do think the idea of setting this up by "race" is simply wrong-it's the worst kind of race baiting and the producers know this. But I have to say CBS knew what it was doing when it made this show. Take a lagging show, add some controversy and viola-instant viewers. It's an old but effective ploy.
The question I have is how were the contestants selected? Simply looking at the photo shows that the teams are not evenly matched in physical prowess. Is it just me or did anyone else notice the large people on the african american and latin teams are absent from the white and asian teams. While I know there is more to the show than the events but winning the events reward the winners with benefits like not having to select someone to leave thus making the team weaker than the others (for those who haven't see the show).
Um...why is no one Indian, Middle Eastern, or Native American? Or Irish? A hundred years ago, we micks weren't considered white. But maybe Survivor didn't give us a team because they knew we'd just spend the whole time boozing.
No one complains about battle of the sexes during these reality show competitions, what is wrong with this? I feel like we must be so politically correct these days that we are going to have to constantly have to censor our opinions. Race is still an issue in this society whether people want to accept it or not.
This is just more of Liu wanting to be on TV so he can get visibility to become mayor.
And no I will not watch the show, but not for this BS reason, but because I hate these fakeality shows.
If the city council is going to start dictating the content of national TV programs I demand that they put a stop to this Dr. Phil.
That's right, #19
what about the Italians vs. the Irish?
or, the Scots vs. the English vs the Welsh
or, the greeks vs the nords
I heart John Liu, you go give em hell, sir!
I dunno. Once the controversy dies down, this idea of dividing survivor participants by race might not turn out to be so interesting.
Maybe it would be more fascinating to send our City Council members to some remote, primative island and then follow them around with a camera.
Barbarino, I use the term ambulance chaser for him because that's how he acts. Whenever there's something to be outraged over, he races for camera time.
He's a hypocrite for rallying various racially-based caucuses in the interest of promoting unity and protesting a racially-based show.
Redmond is pretty damned smart because he got it immediately.
And no, I don't like him. He's a phony publicity hound with nothing better to do with his time. In other words, a politician.
Vinny,
John Liu is the man. But since you don't even understand what "ambulance chaser" means, I don't expect you to be able to understand the important issues that these council members are raising. And the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus is one committee. If you picked up a newspaper or even watched the news sometimes, you might have been able to figure that tough one out.
Vinny and Redmond sound like two dumb rednecks (unless you're self-hating uncle toms) pining for the good ol days. The producers of Survivor keep saying this whole fiasco is a "social experiment." Well, we had a "social experiment" and it was called Jim Crow. Many people sacrificed their lives in the civil rights movement to end segregation. Now, these yokels want to bring it all back. Thanks for nothing.
Um, that's not ambulance chasing.
How could there be an Asian Caucus when he's the only Asian Councilman?
You know what? I'm actually curious to see how this shakes out. It's a social experiment that has me interested in Survivor for the first time in years.
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/boycottsurvivor
I've started an online petition. It's the least I could do to stop the corporatism of CBS. They'll stoop to the lowest levels. I'm glad to see the NYC City Council taking a stand.
"I find it funny that I can't determine the race of about 75% of the contestants from that picture."
That's going to be the twist, they are all white people with varying degrees of suntan.