Survivor Cook Islands: Is Race the Base?

The producers of Survivor admit that this has been one of the most controversial seasons of the show yet. Weeks before the season started, rumors of racially based tribes swept across America. Many could not believe that a reality television show would explicitly divide people by race in a country that's history has struggled with civil rights, segregation, and immigration. This risky theme would definitely either bring the show's ratings up or down.

To be honest, I was nervous about this new season. I attended a college that heavily focused on racial reconciliation and have always been taught to not look at a person's outward appearnce but on their character. I have also watched most of the Survivor seasons and realized that race had never really been an issue on the islands. This may be due to the lack of diversity and the tribes often being primarily white with an occasional African- or Asian-American. It always seemed that the test of survival was only based on the ability to play the game and not on race, religion, or sexual preference. The episodes never showed any indication of racial discrimination within the tribes, unless there was more going on behind the scenes that we were not shown.

Cook Islands has proven unique from any season yet. Rather than dividing the survivors into two tribes, the season started by separating them into four ttibes based on race. The four races represented were White-, African-, Asian-, and Hispanic-American. Each tribe consisted of five members and viewers observed that, in fact, the survival theme had transitioned from, not only winning, but to not letting down their entire race. One could only anticipate what drama would develop at the reward and immunity challanges as the tribes competed against each other.

Surprisingly, not much tension appeared to have occurred at the challenges. The African-American tribe confessed, in the privacy of their camp, that they felt as if they had let down their race, but the Hispanic-American tribe actually lost on purpose during one of the challenges in order to kick off one of their team members because they felt he was not pulling his weight. In this scenario, the conflict did not exist between tribes but within an individual tribe.

After the first couple survivors were kicked off, the producers lived up to the show's fame and put an unexpected twist in the game. The four racial tribes would now combine into two tribes consisting of the races inter-mixed. It would be interesting to see fi the bonds and alliances made in the four race tribes would continue as they were separated and forced to join in living with other races.

The big question, throughtout the entire season is, "WIll race be the base?" Will race determine the winner of this game? The tribes have many members now, but as they dwindle and we come up on the final four, what will endure? Will new alliances form that will override the race card or will the final two be determined by an allicance originally formed in one of the four tribes? The issue of race may be a growing issue as the show continues, or it may disappear and meld back into the normal workings of Survivor.

The episode that aired on October 19 may have given a window to the viewers of how effective the race issue is, or rather, isn't. The dilemma arose when both tribes were forced to vote someone off; win or lose. The losing tribe based their decision on normal factors, such as work ethic and who was the weakest link, but , on the other side, some members of the winning tribe decided that this was the time to make race the factor.

The conspiring began when one of the Asian-Americans, Cao Boi (Cowboy), approached Yul, another of his race, and confided in him of his brillian plan for "Planned Voodoo." His plan was to make sure the tribe voted evenly for Jonathan and Candice, two of the white members within their group. This voting would result in a tie and would force the immunity idol to be shown if either of them had found it on Exile Island.

Well, Cowboy did not realize that his eccentric actions and ideologies were getting on the nerves of his fellow tribe members, and they secretly planned behind his back to vote him off the island. He had no idea what was coming. He had put all of his faith on the racial connections within his tribe and did not think that it could be overruled by annoyance. This Tribal Council may have proved significant for those to come.

This event may have been a one-time occurence or a picture of what we will see in future episodes. Do other tribe members look as highly on the bond of race as Cowboy did? We will have to wait and see. I predict that the race issure coming into play will rely heavily on who gets kicked off from week to week and who is left behind. Some of the tribe members may put more emphasis on race while others simply do not consider it a factor. Watch the continueing episodes to help determine rf race really is the base of this season of Survivor.