Greetings laydiez...I haven't posted here before but I thought I would since I wrote an editorial about this very subject in my school newspaper which was printed today and should be online next week.
In any case, my whole beef with the show is that...it is true Ayanna has some emotional issues she needs to work on (losing a parent can be a real emotional rollercoaster
)and I do not condone her hitting Christian (the young white man from Norway)...BUT...the producers kicked her off not only because she would do the same thing again if the situation occured but they also had the nerve to ask her to appologize to him and they did not ask him to appologize to her.
Now...the arguement that "oh he didn't know any better" in my mind is a crock of B.S. simply because would we be this lenient if this young man was from a small town in the United States? I think not. I attend a small satellite campus and believe me I have met white people on this campus that have never ever in their lives met a person of color until they came to my school. Shocking but true.
So this sympathy that we give him is not really deserved. It is hard for me to believe that if he knew the word n*gger then he also had a vague notion about the conotation of those words. His foreigner status does not remove him from scrutiny.
The other issues that pissed me off about the show was that no one in the RR cast stuck up for her.
The Real World Cast especially Kameelah and Julie (the Mormon girl...go figure!) stood up for her. In fact, Laterrian was one of the main ones putting Ayanna down.
Now the violence, was completely uncalled for but if someone should have been kicked off and we're going to play the "lets protect people" game. Then how about kicking Ayanna off for violence, Laterrian for the whole "white ass" comment that started the mess, and Christian for using the n-word. All of these things could be considered offensive and warrent removal from the cast.
But...and this is my final thought...if you look back at the history of RW/RR (especially RW) you will note the interesting racial situations that are played out on the show. Notice that when there is a black person on the show they are in a few small categories: ignorant of blackness, pimp/playa, (too cool so they never show them: i.e. Mohammed from the San Francisco real world), "angry", "lets just all get along". Think about it.
Thanks for letting me share. Sorry it was so long. Peace
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http://cda.mrs.umn.edu/~chrismos
http://popimpstress.blogspot.com
"If I could have convinced more slaves that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."
---Harriet Tubman
"Only when lions have historians, will hunters cease being heroes"
---African Proverb
[This message has been edited by lastpoetnsite (edited February 15, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by lastpoetnsite (edited February 15, 2001).]