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Friday, August 25, 2006
Art Imitates Life: Survivor and Racism As examples, there are Black radio stations, White radio stations and Latino radio stations. The same applies for television. Communities are very frequently divided along racial lines. When the communities aren't geographically, the groups will divide themselves socially. Here at the University of Illinois we have "white" homecoming and "black" homecoming. There are black culture houses, Latino culture houses, and Asian culture houses. Even the dorms have managed to segregate themselves more-or-less on racial lines. Is it a sign of American racism? Hardly. It is proof-positive that the race-based policies of the left have brought out the exact opposite of what they intended. These policies have enshrined that there are in fact, different groups of Americans that get different sets of rights. You have African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Caucasians, yet no one seems to view themselves as simply "American". Because the lines of division are so clear, the competition between the various groups for a better package of rights is intense. The rivalry between the black lobbyists and the Latino lobbyists is well known. Anyone who dares criticize a policy presented by one of these groups is immediately labeled a racist, bigot, or xenophobe. The politics of hate are most present here, by the people supposedly trying to bring about "unity". The fact is, unity is inherently destroyed unless people view themselves as part of something bigger. If African-Americans view themselves as primarily African-Americans, or whites as whites, or Latinos as Latinos, then there can be no unified America. It is simply a fact of life when there is an "us" and a "them", there exists tension between them. Highlighting the division and granting rights based on it has only entrenched it that division, not eliminated it. So why not have a race-based Survivor series? It's basically just a reflection of American society where instead of trying to be a unified people, the races compete against each other for more cookies. Art, in this case, really does imitate life. John Bambenek is an academic professional for the University of Illinois and a columnist for the Daily Illini and blogs at Part-Time Pundit deep from the corn fields of Illinois. Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by John C. A. Bambenek at 1:16 PM |
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1 Comments:
i liked much of what you said but to me there is nothing wrong with different cultures having different television stations, radios etcetera. america was initially started to celebrate differences in religions and different trains of thoughts. although when ppl use cultures to exploit, this is when you go onto dangerous territory. i think survivor and as you said, nyc use cultural difference to exploit ppl. moving latinos and blacks towards the outskirts of the city, makes it harder for them to work in the economically more robust manhattan. just as with survivor, casting non-professionals and non-athletes on the black team, while those types are very heavy on the white team, is trying to propagate stereotypes such as the lazy black.
hmm...in the end racism is just so complicated and i think that you can never really explain it. but i would like to quote henri baruk, who says, "release from hate complexes will be accomplished only if mankind learns to renounce the scapegoat complex." which to me sums up racism entirely, right now ppl like to use race as something that either makes them inferior or superior to others, and if that was eradicated, it would only be something else.
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