JC
We first told you about the pulled reality show “Welcome to the Neighborhood” in the end of June. Now a resident from the actual neighborhood (Circle C Ranch) where the show was filmed speaks out. I think it really was as ugly as we all feared…

…Another judge, speaking of the black family, discovers “what nice, pleasant and even well-versed people they are.”

Not nice enough, however, to actually win the house. After rejecting the Koreans (too foreign), the witches (too scary), the stripper (too controversial), the tattoo aficionados (too weird-looking) and the Hispanics (too loud), the judging families are left with two finalists: the black family and the gay family.

…I got to see all six episodes of “Welcome to the Neighborhood” last month, at a special screening arranged for Circle C residents. And I can say that it’s a shame that America may never see this particular made-for-TV social experiment, because it provided a rare window into what our neighborhood, and to a large degree, the city of Austin, is really like.

African-Americans in particular get stares and double-takes when they walk along the neighborhood’s lushly landscaped streets. My own family is multiracial, so we know this first-hand.

“Circle C personifies many suburbs in this country, in Texas and in Austin,” said John Bellamy, one of the neighbors cast as “the good guy” on the show because he and his family urged the other judges not to be so intolerant and judgmental. “Look, it’s 2005. I just don’t think in terms of sexuality and race when I interact with somebody.”

Not all the neighbors around Alberta Cove got the message, apparently. After the gay couple won the house, the owners of the home behind it promptly put their place up for sale, Bellamy said, announcing that they didn’t want to live near homosexuals. Then, last month, a black family bought a home on the cul-de-sac, unaware of their new neighbors’ participation in the reality TV show.

“I’m feeling a little uncomfortable for them, not really knowing what they were getting into,” Bellamy said of the black family. “I hope they’ll like it here.”