Is CBS's Survivor Show Going to be a Battle of the Races/Ethnicities?

Reports out this morning by the Associated Press [here] and The New York Times [here] on negative publicity CBS is receiving after it announced a change in the format of its popular show Survivor. AP says CBS has "defended the ethnic twist."

AP reports, "For the first portion of the 13th season of "Survivor," which premieres Sept. 14, the contestants competing for the $1 million prize while stranded on the Cook Islands in the South Pacific will be divided into four teams - blacks, Asians, Latinos and whites."

New York City Councilman "[John] Liu, who is Asian-American, said he was launching a campaign urging CBS to pull the show because it could encourage racial division and promote negative typecasts. He and a coalition of officials, including the council's black, Latino and Asian caucus, planned to rally at City Hall on Friday," AP reports.

My sense is that CBS, which has seen a decline in viewership of this program, one of its most successful ever, sought to develop a national debate on the issue of race and ethnicity while attracting more viewers to its program.

Bill Carter's story in the Times includes this quote from the show's long-time producer and developer:

“In America today,” Mr. Burnett said, “I really don’t believe there are many people who hate each other because of their race. But even though people may work together, they do tend in their private lives to divide along social and ethnic lines.”

The critically acclaimed film Crash is an example of an entertainment effort that was able to turn prejudice and racial or ethnic hatred on its head. And I bet the show's development team sought to benefit from the praise this film and others received for causing audiences to think about the issue in our country.

According to Carter that casting for this season required an outreach effort into minority communities:

"For the new contest, Mr. Burnett said, the show reached out to social and church groups to bring in more applicants of different backgrounds. He said the results had been gratifying."

- Adam

Juan Williams Calls for Black Leadership to Change Approach

NPR journalist and well-known African American author Juan Williams has a fairly controversial op-ed in today's Washington Post with under the title "Banish the Bling: A Culture of Failure Taints Black America."

Williams writes in his column, "Have we taken our eyes off the prize? The civil rights movement continues, but the struggle today is not so much in the streets as in the home -- and with our children. If systemic racism remains a reality, there is also a far more sinister obstacle facing African American young people today: a culture steeped in bitterness and nihilism, a culture that is a virtual blueprint for failure."

Williams' column goes on to examine, and defend, Bill Cosby's criticism of Black leadership and African American culture: "Incredibly, Cosby's critics don't see the desperate need to pull a generational fire alarm to warn people about a culture of failure that is sabotaging any chance for black people in poverty to move up and help their children reach the security of economic and educational achievement. Not one mainstream civil rights group picked up on his call for marches and protests against bad parenting, drug dealers, hate-filled rap music and failing schools."

It's hard to disagree with his conclusion, "The defining challenge for this generation of Americans dealing with poverty is putting the next generation in a position to move even higher. Individuals must now use the opportunities made available to them by the sacrifices of past generations if they are to achieve victory in America's long and still unfinished civil rights movement."

Click [here] for the full article.

Minorities Become Majority in Three More U.S. Cities

Tomorrow's Washington Post reports in a piece titled "Changing Face of Western Cities," that minorities have become the majority in a number of major American cities. It's a topic we'll be addressing in my Ethnic Marketing course this fall at Johns Hopkins University.

Last week I posted a short piece to MATT.org about changing American demographics. Click [here] to review that article.

The Post's Anushka Asthana writes, "An analysis of census data released last week has shown that the white non-Hispanic population in another three of America's 50 largest cities has become a minority. In Phoenix, Tucson and Denver, the white population has recently fallen below 50 percent, according to William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. He predicts that another four cities will soon follow. Whites will become a minority in Arlington, Tex.; Charlotte; and Las Vegas within two years and in Austin within four years, he said."

Click [here] to visit the Washington Post article.

Historically Black Colleges Reach Out to Hispanic Students

Historically black colleges and universities, HBCU's, are reaching out more aggresively to Hispanic students, reports the Associated Press today. Atlanta AP reporter Dorie Turner finds that " Black colleges that want to shore up enrollment numbers are revising recruitment strategies to include more members of the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group. The campuses are hiring Hispanic recruiters, distributing brochures that feature Hispanic students and establishing special scholarships for Hispanics."

This is an interesting development which could help save the financially challenged HBCU's while also calming some of the tensions between African Americans and Hispanics that even reached into the academic elites.

Just a couple years ago I participated in, and spoke at, a three day symposium at Harvard Univeristy titled the Color Lines Conference and I witnessed a thoughtful dialogue between a panelist and an audience member who spoke about their mutual distrust for one another even though both have devoted their time to building racial and ethnic understanding.

Click [here] or [here] for the article.

AP reports: "Casinos Are Aggressively Courting Asian Americans"

It's rare that mainstream media explores the ways business segments are tapping into the Asian American consumer market. They are quite helpful for building case studies for my ethnic marketing course at Johns Hopkins University and for sharing with clients of my agency, The 2050 Group.

Associated Press reporter Ling Liu has an intriguing story on the wire today about how casinos are mounting aggressive efforts to attract Asian Americans, responsible for enormous segments of casino revenues. Liu reports, "And few industries have catered to the Asian boom with as much cultural competency as the $75 billion U.S. gambling industry."

This struck me as astonishing: "Foxwoods, the biggest casino in the world, based on gambling floor space, estimates that at least one-third of its 40,000 customers per day are Asian. Mohegan Sun says Asian spending makes up a fifth of its business and has increased 12 percent during the first half of this year alone."

With detailed evidence of the outreach efforts in Asian American communities and details on the growing buying power of Asian Americans, I find Liu's piece to be one of the more thorough and helpful AP stories of its kind in a long time.

Click [here] for the full AP story.