I have been watching Survivor since the first season finale. I still remember when Richard Hatch (private parts blurred) walked around naked to intimidate the other players prior to the final vote. In Season 2, I remember that Jerri Manthey set-up and lied about an Army Intelligence officer (Kel Gleason, Native American and Hispanic) to get him voted out early. In the spring of 2005, while I was serving in Iraq, I caught a finale by chance on a television in an MWR room on Victory Base; a little slice of home! I have seen nearly every episode of nearly every season since. The game has always shown how people form alliances and justify their choices when a million dollars is on the line. I am fascinated by human behavioral psychology, and Survivor and Jeff Probst never let me down. Lately, in Season 51, it has held up a clear mirror to how our society talks about race—and how that talk often ignores the actual history that ended slavery in America.
In Season 51, black players formed the Helicopter Alliance. One of them, Jelly, said it was created “to make sure black people did well in the game.” After a tribe swap, they used that bond to vote out a white player. An X post by Michael Keith put the reaction many fans had into words: Another season of black players doing it ‘for the culture’. If white people ever mentioned voting based on color, they would be ridiculed and labeled. But on Survivor it’s OK to be racists as long as you’re not white.
I replied because the pattern feels familiar and wrong. “It is phenomenally disappointing in an otherwise GOATed game,” I wrote. “These are not bad people, but they reflect their upbringing. Why does it seem, over and over again that the racism in America is rooted in the black psyche?” I also pointed out the double standard: if white players had openly worked to eliminate others based on race, it would have been a scandal. Other comments in the thread called race-based alliances boring and predictable, claimed white people do the same thing quietly, or argued that history makes the word “racism” unfair here.
Now we are faced with a situation where if the truth comes out about the alliance and it’s purpose, would the non-black players be considered racist for trying to break it up and vote out the black players because they are in a black alliance?
This is not the first time identity has shaped the game. In Season 41, Black players formed an open alliance after the merge and spoke at Tribal Council about representing their community “for the culture.” Earlier seasons saw strong women’s alliances, and Season 13 even began with tribes divided by race. A study of the first forty seasons found that women and players of color were more likely to be voted out early. Players will always look for any edge—shared age, region, strength, or race. The problem is the uneven rule: one version of racial voting is often treated as representation, while the reverse would be condemned.
I grew up in an integrated neighborhood in Southern California and in a mixed, blended family. I was taught to judge people by their character, not the color of their skin. That idea still makes the most sense to me. The same principle applies when we talk about the past. Society often discusses slavery and reparations as if the institution ended only yesterday, and as if the only people who suffered or sacrificed were the enslaved. That leaves out a large part of the story.
My great-great-grandfather’s 1863 Civil War diary, serialized by my mother in 1963 in a yearlong series of recounted, transcribed entries, and now in a book called “The Centum Diary,” he mentions the Contraband Camp in Corinth, Mississippi, where he was stationed for much of that year. After Union forces took the area, thousands of freed slaves gathered there. The camp grew into a small town with houses, a church, a school, a hospital, and farms where the residents worked for wages. Men from the camp later joined the Union Army as the 1st Alabama Infantry of African Descent. It was one of the places where freedom began to take shape under Union protection.
Roughly 360,000 white male and about 37,000 black male Union soldiers died in the Civil War, what I call the War to End Slavery. Those men—white and Black—fought to end the slavery. I also have a distant cousin, General Gordon Granger, who on June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, issued General Order No. 3. He told the people of Texas that, under the Emancipation Proclamation, “all slaves are free.” That announcement is the origin of Juneteenth.
If the country is going to talk seriously about reparations, it should at least acknowledge who bore the battle. The soldiers who fought and died to end slavery paid a price that cannot be measured in money. Ignoring that sacrifice while treating race-based alliances on a reality show as progress does not help us move forward. Survivor reflects the culture that produces it. It’s fascinating that after all this time; young blacks still revert to racist ideas to survive a society that long ago saw them as people and valuable members of society. Yes, through trials and tribulations, but surely, we are ready to move on.
The mirror is being held up again. Looking at both the game and the fuller history—without looking away—lets us see where double standards and incomplete stories come from. Judging individuals by their character, and remembering who ended slavery, remains a better standard than sorting people by the color of their skin.
