Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Survivor - This ain't Gilligan's Island

Wassup, Y'all!

As promised I'm back to weigh in on this Survivor: Cook Islands madness unfolding over on CBS. Now I've heard about the premise, read about the premise, listened to all the blog and news outlets jibber-jabber about the premise but I still can't believe the bogus Survivor premise of separating the contestants into four racial groups of five - black, white, Asian and Hispanic (or southside, northside, eastside and westside for you regular Malone Zone readers).

When I was in my biddy-bop days, I used to wonder why no one but northsiders were able to go on Gilligan's fateful three hour tour but now, courtesy of CBS I can root for a whole group of castaways that look just like me...well not *just* like me cuz I look good but you get my drift. Funny thing is, I'm not feeling this separate but equal ruckus...

Exhibit A: The southside tribe's own Gilligan - a brother named Sekou Bunch who now joins the small and embarassed group of contestants known as the "First To Get Yo A$$ Kicked Off The Island" tribe. Hold up - how'd a southside homey who's not OJ get the first boot? That's foul! And you can pretty much hear the Archie Bunker types cackling at their TV sets saying 'Didn't I tell you George Jefferson would be the first to go? You know Wheezy's a$$ is going next!'

Flip the script and pan over to the Bloods in Compton and you'll likely hear "Damn, that ni##a was soft! He went out like a sucker! Least he could have capped a few of those Archie Bunkers before they put his Toby a$$ back on the boat!" You feel me? I'm struggling to see how this will help get us to Gumbo-land, which is where we ought to be heading and away from all this racial back biting and card pulling. What's Gumbo-land? Let ol Ty drop a little knowledge...

I've heard it said more than a few times that America doesn't need to be a 'melting pot', something that produces a bland, homogenous product that looks similar in every way, but it needs to be more like a Gumbo pot where you put in a bunch of unique, tasty ingredients and get a heterogenous concoction that tastes far better than the individual ingredients alone. That's the tasty American train car I'm gettin' on. Everybody brings their own little bit to the table and we just get our eat, drink and be merry on.

For those digging this new Suvivor scene, I recommend another viewing of Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing (and *not* for that Rosie Perez scene, y'all - stop being juvenile! Well...okay...maybe a little bit for that scene...). If I had known CBS was going to pull this ruckus I would have put in a bulk Netflix order for those buster executives who green lit this 'experiment'.

Remember the scene where each ethnic group is dropping every racial name they can think of on each other until cool Samuel 'Love Daddy' Jackson busts in on the radio and tells everyone to 'Chill The Hell Out!' Those are word's ol Ty tries to live by. Be proud of yours but appreciate the others and stop all that crying and card pulling. Y'all saw those Brazil glossys a few posts back! If you're going to be feeling the Latin mami's you got to give respect to the Latin papi's as well. That works all the way around, y'all. One Love - there's plenty of room for everybody...except for Sekou's tired a$$ I guess (Sekou - man, I'm just playin')...

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

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