CBS show Survivorannounced yesterday that it would divide this season’s 20 contestants into tribes based on race: there’ll be African American tribe, Asian American tribe, Hispanic tribe and White tribe. Which means that in an amazing twist, in addition to subsiting on grubs and subjecting themselves to humiliating displays of desperation, cast members will also have to be super self-conscious when hurling insults at other tribes. Apparently inspired less by neo-Darwinism than pure cluelessness, host Jeff Probst (a non-Hispanic White) appeared on “The Early Show” today to explain the organic process by which this amazing moment in American popular culture came about:
“It wasn’t until we got to casting and started noticing this theme of ethnic pride . . . that we started thinking, wow, if culture is still playing such a big part in these people’s lives, that’s our idea, let’s divide them based on ethnicity.”
