Casting "The Bachelor"

I’m a regular viewer of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette on ABC (yes…it’s a guilty pleasure), which debuted with another Bachelorette season this week.  Despite the fact that I’m a devoted viewer of the show, there are many aspects of the show that I find objectionable.  For example, I think the ridiculous amounts of cash that must be spent on sending the participants to the most lavish hotspots on the planet is financially wasteful.  And to be sure, the consistent promiscuity of the bachelor/bachelorette that permeates each season is quite ironic considering that the premise of the show is the pursuit of falling in love with ONE of the contestants.  Oh, and did I mention that it’s beyond decadent that the lead protagonist begins swapping spit with multiple “prospects” almost the moment that they step out of the limo…and the spit swapping later leads to sex with “prospects” with whom the protagonist definitely does not care to wed at the end of the season (as we found out when Nick Viall outed Andi Dorfman for doing that to him during season 10 of The Bachelorette).

When you really think about it, the show is nothing more than “The Real World/Road Rules Challenge,” dressed up in sophistication. 

Now the objections I listed above are obvious.  But I think there’s something deeper in the pattern of the show that I find to be common in America, and that something is terribly damaging…

…for several seasons there has been a revolving carousel of contestants who later become either the Bachelor or the Bachelorette.  So if you are NOT one of the last four contestants standing the previous season, the chance of you becoming the Bachelor/Bachelorette is slim to none.  Since the lead contestants are chosen from the previous season’s contestants, and the show began with a VERY homogenous crowd of participants (i.e. white/Caucasian American), the cast (as well as the chosen Bachelor/Bachelorette) is incredibly lacking in diversity. 

How does this relate to America at large you ask?  Well for centuries, Black people were not allowed to obtain public education, have certain jobs or participate in certain community activities due to institutions like slavery and the Jim Crow Laws of the South.  Now that slavery has been abolished and Jim Crow has been eradicated, and we’re “post-racial,” it would seem that Black people would be represented in numbers at least approaching their representation in the general population in jobs across the board, right?

Nope!!!

Here’s how it actually works…for centuries only white men could hold the majority of profitable jobs.  Because people tend to surround themselves with folks that look like them (or that they know), the majority of hires for the lucrative/powerful positions are white (and male).  There may be a sprinkling of people of color, but because those people of color typically don’t have the (often racially directed) insider network of their white counterparts, they tend not to get the references.  So the candidates who then get the job often come from the same network of white men they’re already closely associated with, and they themselves tend to be white.

The Bachelor franchise highlights this so glaringly.  Think about it, Sean Lowe, Chris Soules, Jake Pavelka and Jason Mesnick all became the Bachelor after appearing as contestants on The Bachelorette.  Ashley Hebert, Desiree Hartsock, as well as this season’s co-contestants Britt Nilsson and Kaitlyn Bristowe, all became the Bachelorette after appearing as contestants on The Bachelor. 

In fact, there have only been a few black, latino or asian contestants at all on either series.  And none have served as The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, with the exception of season 18’s Juan Pablo Galavis, who is white latino (i.e. most people wouldn’t guess that he’s latino without hearing him speak or knowing his name). 

If the franchise continues for another 10 or 20 seasons, I doubt there will ever be a Black Bachelorette (she’d certainly be deemed ghetto if she got into some of the fights or had the many trysts that previous White Bachelorette’s have had).  And there will definitely not be a Black Bachelor (there’s no way White America would approve of a Black man having sex with a cohort of their precious White daughters, even though it seems to be fine for White men to do on the show, and despite the fact that America's precious White daughters have sex with Black men while they’re away at college anyway).

Well, I suppose it (a Black man/woman as the Bachelor/Bachelorette) could happen.  But until then, I’ll continue having fun each season playing the game, “when will the last minority be voted off?” 

-Maelstrom

Cameras Can Help Illuminate Injustice, But The Outcome Will (Sadly) Be The Same

In 1955, Money, Mississippi, a 14-year-old Black Boy was killed by two white men for having some interaction with one of their wives in a store.  What that interaction was is still unclear, but some versions of the story say he whistled at the white woman, while others say that he said something sexually suggestive to her.  In any case Emmett Till was not supposed to interact with her at all while he was in that store, in accordance with the unjust southern racial caste system.  His body was later found brutally mangled, beaten and unimaginably disfigured.  Although everyone knew who killed him, they also all knew that there would be no justice for him. 

Fast forward to 2014, and to the video footage of Tamir Rice being gunned down by a white police officer in Cleveland, Ohio.  Look at the footage of Eric Garner being choked to death by a half-dozen cops in New York City in the summer of 2014 for illegally selling single cigarettes.  Before that, consider the audio recording of George Zimmerman as he stalked and later killed Trayvon Martin, defying the instructions of the 911 operator who told him not to pursue Martin.  Look at myriad other similar recorded instances in which unarmed Black Men and Boys have been killed while posing no serious threat to anyone, if posing a threat at all.

Now also look at footage of young white men confronting cops, cursing at them, getting chesty with them, pushing them, yelling at them.  The difference is that the white boys can do that and not only live to joke about it later, but often don’t ever find themselves in handcuffs at all after confronting cops.  In fact, young white men can walk into a movie theater, shoot down and kill a dozen people, and live to stand trial and defend themselves (see James Holmes...Aurora, Colorado).

The fact of the matter is that Black people have been mistreated by police officers (and the white public at large) for centuries…AND WE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THIS TO BE THE CASE with and without cameras present to verify it.  Every person, Black, white or other, knew that those two white men killed Emmett Till in 1954.  And those two white men knew that they could kill Till and get away with his murder, AND that it would be fine by their white brethren.  And as if to prove that point, they brazenly gave a full length account of how they murdered Till in Look Magazine, once they’d been acquitted of the murder.

Today, everyone (Black, white and other) knows that the death of Eric Garner, for example, was wrong and the white officers were absolutely excessive and out of order in their take down and subsequent disregard for the health of the man.  Yet, no charges.  And the list of similar cases is unbelievably extensive…from the acquittal of the cops who were videotaped beating Rodney King, to the not guilty verdicts of the cops who killed Amadou Diallo (murdered by cops while standing unarmed on the porch of his home).

What’s my point?  I know that everyone is urging the police officers nationwide to adopt the use of body cameras, as a way of holding police officers accountable.  The fact of the matter is that we NEVER needed cameras for everyone to know when an injustice had been committed at the hands of police – the Emmett Till story highlights that (though the white murderers weren’t cops in that case).

I support all police officers having body cams that have specific fail safes on them (e.g. alerts when a cop turns off the camera, requiring the cop to explain why the camera was off).  But all the cameras will do is add to the ridiculously extensive pile of proof that societal injustices – often at the hands of (white) police officers – frequently occur toward Black people.  But what the very recent evidence shows is that even with cameras the end result will not change:  Black Men will be unnecessarily killed, while white murderers – whether in a badge or not – will go free.

-Maelstrom