Just when you thought reality TV couldn't get any more grotesque, enter "Welcome To the Neighborhood," which premiers on ABC next month.
This latest display of gross exploitation features three white self-described "Christian" families who get to pick their new neighbors from among a group of minority families--including a gay couple with an adopted child of color (that kind of exposure should do wonders for this child's self esteem, huh?).
So which is more disgusting? The fact that ABC show producers signed off on this or the people who actually subjected themselves to this kind of exposure--competing to impress opinionated neighbors to win a house? In the end, predominant social biases will continue to thrive if the ratings are high enough.
What's next, compete to impress "new-and-improved" Ku Klux Klan members to win their approval? Is this the same America that proposes to be the beacon of moral standards for the rest of the world?
Anyone else care to chime in on this latest train wreck?
1 comment:
off-topic: here's a translated article of a friend of mine that is working in San Diego - California for about six months now and in it he talks about what he thinks about American in general.
I hope you like it and please tell me what you think of it.
"Considerations on U.S.A.
It is part of the manual of the new anarchist, the rebellious antiglobalization, or the intellectual of left, to say badly of the United States, despite the biggest part of them didn't even went there to know it.
many of the stereotypes that all use to say badly of this country are correct, however nobody speaks in general of the reason of the things to be like that. I'll try to clarify some points:
1 - The Americans are ignorants.
Yes They are! Definitively the Americans are sufficiently ignorant in the generality. Most never left the country, that said, it is true that the country of them goes from Portugal to deep Russia, occupying a gigantic area. However, and having in account that my sampling is California, one of the priveliged places of U.S.A., I must say that the ignorance is preoccupying. But let us point to what, in my opinion, will be the causes of this ignorance. The average media in U.S.A., and mainly the television that is the source biggest of information of this sluggish people, is of a clamorous superficiality, as well as if it was the "Daisy rebel Young chicken" to choose the news. News of the Europe? Nor to see them... Israel-Palestinian Conflict? Isn't that already over?... China? Japan? It swims... The news that we have here are a worst of news. The kid that was imprisoned in the elevator, the dog that was perforated for a pig thorn, and so on. We have had notice of terrorist attacks in London, and its development, but perhaps because it is a global event, and the terrorism is an expensive subject to the country and serves the propaganda of anti terrorist American. Later, I find that the type of education that it gives in U.S.A. takes its people not to question, to accept the situations passively. It is very difficult to obtain a good quarrel in U.S.A. If I start to raise it problems, I am dealt with condescension, an attitude that annoys me still more. They are taught not to put problems. hurra for critical spirit! However, it will be always difficult to have a critical spirit before situations of that they do not have knowledge. The disinformation, or the information occultation, is fenomenal and wide scale in this country. Here, to have access to the serious and global news it's necessary to look for, and that it does not make part of the spirit of the majority of the Americans. It is well more easy to tame and control a country without critical spirit.
2 - Are all of them ignorant?
No! Here in California the people are interested parties, and demonstrate one high critical spirit in relation to its country. An approach effort is noticed many times. And this is positive. Some people ask me what Portuguese and European find of them, and underline many times its ignorance in relation to Europe. Or either, California people are conscious of their ignorance, what already isn't that bad. And to give a more positive perspective, the other day i got a taxi driver that spoke to me of the Portuguese discoveries, comparing them with the Spanish, spoke of our facts and did not hesitate in talking our people, as well as it spoke very well of sensible world-wide geopolitics and the paper of its country in the world. A good surprise on board a Yellow Cab.
3 - The Americans are arrogant in relation to the Europeans.
Not in any form. They soon start to excuse itself for its government, they talk of Europe with admiration and respect, more still, people are extremely welcoming here, I was myself accustoming to have a reasonable smile printed in the face a great number of hours per day.
Concluding this small comment on the Americans, I can say that I think that, we should know better the USA. To not commit the same error that we point to U.S.A., we should too perhaps strengthen our relations for better understanding of people here. In the other day I was to a lecture on the Middle East where they appeared innumerable students of the Fulbright of some countries, and where we could hear an American, Ann Kerr, with an enormous historial for countries as the Lebanon, the Syrian, Egipt or Turkey, to speak on Middle East to the 30 years behind, and to make a reading of developing of the tensions in the region, in parallel with its life that if uncurled in those stoppings. She entered some episodes I can detach like the murder of its husband in the Lebanon in 84, the director of the American University of Beirute. One gotten passionate for the Middle East and its people, spoke sourly of uncurling of the situation, and in the end who got the blame was the American government. One of the great conclusions that I take here of my experience, is that it there is a great distance between the acts of the American administration and the great majority of its people."
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