Survivor has gone to far…race island

I am not a big “Survivor” fan.
The idea of watching people on an island having to kill fish and hunt for food is not my type of entertainment. Although I watched some of the first season, I did it mostly because everyone else was watching it and it was the first time a show played off of a Gilligan’s Island-type theme.
So when I saw commercials for this season, I ignored them. It wasn’t until I was watching VH1’s “Best Week Ever” this weekend that “Survivor: Cook Island” caught my attention.
In one of the segments, the comedians were talking about Survivor and how this season the contestants were separated into racial groups.
It’s almost 2007 and the only fresh concept CBS could think of would be to separate by race? What kind of foolishness is that? Who could really find humor in pitting races against each other to see who is better at catching fish or starting a fire with a damp coconut and banana leaf?
First I went to CBS.com to watch the first episode and see for myself what was really going on. Maybe I was over reacting, maybe CBS had a bright idea and I was just being negative as usual.
I wish I were wrong.
The show was worse than I could have thought.
Take every stereotype you have of blacks, whites, Mexicans and Asians and you have the new season of Survivor. At one point in the show, things got so bad that I had to laugh just to keep from crying.
Instance number one, rebuffing the myth that black people can swim.
How stupid would it be to be on a show where the contestants live on an ISLAND where most challenges require you to swim and you cannot? Or the remark that the Hispanics are “used to being in a tropical setting.”
I am not a geography major, but when did Mexico become a tropical setting?
At one point, a woman from the white tribe, Raro, offered a toast to the “whities!” I have not heard someone use that term since George Jefferson.
Most people believe CBS is doing this because not only are ratings for the show down, but the station as well. So by pulling out the tried and true race card, ratings should have gone up.
According to recently published reports, only 18 million viewers tuned in, behind ABC’s “Dancing with the Star’s” 20.2 million.
Since the black tribe lost the first competition (surprise, surprise, the Asians’ won the puzzle contest while the black tribe lost in the boat race), they lost a member of their group.
Which leads to me to thinking, are the challenges based on race? If the Asians won the puzzle, maybe next week the challenge will be to see how quickly each tribe can give a manicure and pedicure or have a spade tournament. That would really be something.
Even though I really wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the rules, I did notice that the losing team gets to choose a member of the winning team to put into exile. Since the black team lost to the white team in the boat race, they choose Jonathan to live on Exile Island. Why is this important, because Jonathan stole a chicken? And we all know how important chicken is.