Survivor: Deep South Edition

All this talk about Survivor segregating contestants got me curious.

There is a documentary series on PBS called American Experience, about the Civil Rights Movement.

This is probably one of the most important periods of American History because the entire identity of the Democratic and Republican parties as we know them today, were re-formed around this fight for integration.
The part I caught was about the end of Segregation in the southern schools.

There was no tribal council meeting to vote out members but I'm sure the white folk at the time wished their was.

It's easy to forget how ugly the end of Segregation was when you are not watching archive footage of it all.
But watching the clips and interviews with the actual Little Rock 9 and James Meredith (a really bizarre man,) it was quite clear.
White people really did not want to go to school with Negroes.
I mean damn.

There were hundreds of white people standing around booing, amongst other things, nine little black children trying to go school. The situation was so bad that each kid had their own U.S. soldier escorting them around.

Can you truly imagine that?

The soldiers couldn't go into the locker rooms and other places with them and as soon as they parted the black students under watch recalled being tripped onto glass bottles and other ridiculous shit.

Forty years later black kids still need their own soldier in school, but now it's to prevent the other black kids from killing them.

And the realest shit of it all is that white people still don't go to school with black people.
Most public schools are still segregated. It's just legal now because all the white people moved away.

Affirmative action is getting chipped away at daily and black kids who are coming up are more willing to do the Chicken Noodle Soup dance than go to class.

It's not looking good.

The reason I was interested in season Survivor was because it addressed the reality of modern day segregation as well as hilariously embarrassing numerous stereotypes in the process.

Up to this day, people are mainly split into tribes that fall along racial lines.

The producers of Survivor had the courage to address the issue within the context of their show but idea was scuttled for whatever reason.

It's okay though. There's still enough real life segregation to hold me over.