Bob Dawg's Take

I took the opportunity to write to a few of my favorite former Survivors this morning, as well as a couple of the more notorious players in the game. I'm thrilled to report back that one of my faves, none other than Mr. Bob Dawg, was the first to respond. Here are his answers to the questions I asked... More to come!

DishChickCarolyn - What's your take on the tribe divide?

Mr. Bob Dawg - "This is clearly a publicity stunt. There's no way around that. The question is whether there's something devious going on -- i.e., are they TRYING to cause drama and pain by playing with such a sensitive issue like race in such a heavy handed manner or is it just recklessness in the sense that they were just clueless as to how much drama and pain it would cause b/c they're a) dumb or b) blinded by the desire to get ratings and to get people talking about Survivor again. Survivor is not the forum to be dealing with delicate issues like race and I can't take the idea that this is a real social experiment seriously. Making Eddie Murphy into an I-banker and making Dan Aykroyd into a bum (in Trading Places), that's a social experiment. This is a ratings grab. The problem with rich white dudes deciding to have an "experiment" on race is that if things go wrong and people start getting hurt, it's not the Mark Burnetts, J Probsts and Les Moonves of the world that will be hurt by it. It's the people (like me) that have to deal with race and racism in the real world and has to deal with people who sometimes get all of their information about people of other backgrounds/cultures etc from TV. If this thing goes horribly wrong, those CBS and SEG can say "dang, that sucked. Oh well, let's go back to casting the show like an episode of Friends." But in the meantime, regular people may be offended, insulted, hurt, etc in the real world and they can't ignore it. Dang, this answer is long as shit! I still haev to cut and paste my other stuff and I think I covered things pretty well tehre so I'll cut this part off. Overall, bad idea though to divide by race and the notion that it's a social experiment is b.s. It's a ratings grab, it's reckless. Hopefully it won't turn out badle. I can't see how it can be good, but maybe it will just be neutral or something... "

DishChickCarolyn: Do you think American's will root based on race?2)
Mr. Bob Dawg: "I don't think people will root based on race. Or I should say, I don't think white people will root based on race. I happen to believe that most people are not racist and cringe when they're accused of it or made to feel like they are perceived to be and white people that don't want to be labeled that way won't openly be like "Go Whitey!". There are plenty of people out there that think that way of course (google "'groid destroyed paradise" and "survivor" to see some hardcore racists view of survivor for instance) but for the most part I think white people would feel uncomfortable pulling for the white team on the basis of their whiteness. I think some white people will feel inclined to pull for another race b/c they see them as underdogs or b/c they don't want to be seen as racist. I think that asian americans will openly pull for the asian team and that hispancs will be "down with brown" as they should since they've had so little representation on the show. They shouldn't miss the one chance they'll have to watch and root for people that look like them on this show. Black people won't be rooting for the black team b/c black people don't watch Survivor (we're always sleeping, at least according to Mark Burnett and his editors ;-))."

DishChickCarolyn: Will the jury votes be tribally/racially motivated?
Mr. Bob Dawg: "I don't think so. I think that unless they have some hardcore racists, that people of all tribes will be trying to avoid looking like they're doing stuff (post-merge) based on race. No matter what your race, you always look bad when you look like you're motivated by race. It would look especially bad in this context since the show is so short that any real deliberation on race will be reduced to some dumb ass soundbyte and people are going to look dumb as shit when they try to fit some deep thoughts into a sentence then see it aired as a 3 second blurb that makes them look like they're motivated by race. I think some people will go the other way so they DONT look like their votes are motivated by race and some people will vote based on the initial friendships they make but it will LOOK like it was based on race...I've had a very diverse group of friends (I grew up in So. Central with black and hispanic friends then went to a top prep school with mostly white and asian kids). Based only on stereotypes, I would say that as a group the asian team is the strongest and will be most likely to have loyalties based no race. I think the black and hispanic team will be the most likely to "cater" to Whitey ;-). But again, I have no idea what these people are like. Basically, I think that Asians are the least threatening minority group to white america, followed by hispanics. No one really hates asians or hispanics (unless they're illegal immigrants, then people hate them). White people in this society are more likely to accept or tolerate asians and hispanics but there are people that really HATE black people in the country and some of them have tv and radio shows. THat's why it's a problem and this can be painful to people and I think black people are the most likely to be hurt. If the black team fails to complete a mental puzzle, there are people out there that will be nodding saying "yup! Dem nigraz cain't think straight, I done tol' you det, sheeeit!" "