Jeff Probst realizes that Asians are not all identical!
CVK
(Thanks to daddyinastrangeland and Angry Asian Man for this!)
See? Who says nothing good would come out of this new season of “Survivor: Race Wars?” The show’s host, Jeff Probst, has already learned some valuable multiculti lessons, as documented by The Washington Post:
Until “Survivor” host Jeff Probst sat in on casting sessions for the CBS reality series’s new edition, in which competitors were picked and put into “tribes” based on their ethnic background, he had not realized that “Asian” includes Japanese, Koreans and Chinese and that they do not necessarily like each other as a matter of ethnic solidarity.
Whites, on the other hand, are “mutts” and “don’t have any ethnicity to hang on to,” he told reporters on a phone conference call Wednesday.
“When you start talking to a person from Asia, you realize — Wow! They have all different backgrounds!” gushed Probst, who described himself repeatedly as a 44-year-old white guy from Wichita…
The other day, he told the reporters, he went to his dentist, who is white, and the dentist brought in another dentist, who is Asian. “And I found myself saying to the Asian doctor, ‘Where in Asia is your family from?’ ” The dentist said he was Korean. “The only reason I had the courage to even ask that question or the knowledge to ask that question was I’d just spent 39 days with people from Korea,” Probst said.
Asians, he explained, include Chinese and Japanese and Koreans and “they don’t necessarily get along,” adding, “This is stuff maybe I should know.”
Darren wrote:
Asians are from different places….like DUH!!!
Survivor ventures out to all of these so called exotic places, yet, the cast isn’t as diverse of these places. It’s like neo-colonial adventures around the world: the natives cannot not be the explorers; the explorers cannot be the natives. Instead the neo-colonial survivors take the native’s culture and that serves as the back drop for the season: a tiki head, tribal music, or simply a few native words. The show gives the spicy whiff of diversity, however the main dish is served bland, cold, and white. Only once has a person of color won and it was truly an under-the-radar-I-hope-they-don’t-notice-I’m-Black experience.
Now with a truly diverse cast, a wench has been placed in mechanical wheels of paradise, a divided cast by race. Wasn’t Survivor always divided by race? A single asian and everyone else? A single or two black and everyone else? A single Latin and everyone else? And everyone else equals of course the white cast color-blindly enjoying the exotism at it’s finest, partaking in native culture without the natives. Is this heaven or what? In the end, this season is simply a farce, a charade, an attempt to have the natives partake in native culture, however it’s through the lense of mostly white production staff who is mocking the notion of this diversity by having each compete against each other. This displays the mind of the colonizer more than the mind of the colonalized.
Posted 13 Sep 2006 at 11:19 am ¶
Jennifer wrote:
It’s sad that Mr. Probst is learning about all this at such a late age in his life. I would hope he doesn’t ask every Asian person he meets from what country they’re come from. Let it be known also, that white people are not entirely mutts, as he calls them. To say so would mean they have no culture, and that is an insult (albeit that did not come out of Mr. Probst mouth nor did he mean it that way, but those listening or reading his comment could take it in that fashion). My father is Dutch/English and even he (being an American) likes his tea and keeps his unwrapped presents underneath the tree after Christmas as a sort of blessing. This is a Dutch tradition, or perhaps a family tradition, which he claims. Anyhow, my point is, America is not all about football games, beer, and happy hour. There is so much more diversity among races, cultures, and even family (irregardless of background). I just wish Mr. Probst would have learned this earlier in his life. I mean, wasn’t he alive during the Vietnam War? Also, if he’s a resident of California, he should have some awareness of different cultures (Hispanic/Latino, Asian, African American, Middle Eastern, etc). What he should do as a social experiment rather than having races compete against each other is to live in a foreign country for a period of three months (and I’m not talking about Canada or Western Europe) and study and see what its like in other countries, their customs, etc. Perhaps them, he would have more of an understanding and more of a genuine appreciation. Really, there’s so much more to culture and race besides, “Where did you come from?”
Posted 13 Sep 2006 at 11:31 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
I don’t have much to add to the comments, except that, dude, obviously the guy (or at least the persona he’s using) hasn’t looked at a damn map since first grade.
Asia also includes a LOT more than Japanese, Chinese, Korean… Laos? Vietnam? Cambodia? Indonesia? India? Sri Lanka? Pakistan? Freaking Siberia? Nepal? If you want to subdivide based on geography, then you have to start talking about Pacific Islands, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Northern steppes/interior Asia, Pacific Coast, etc.
The stupid - it burns!
Posted 13 Sep 2006 at 1:20 pm ¶
mtevc wrote:
The sad part of this is that besides now confirming that Jeff Probst is an idiot, we are now aware of just how large his idiocy looms, as he wasn’t even smart enough to keep that stupid stuff to himself. WHAT A MAROON, to quote Bugs Bunny…
I think this falls into the category of…why White people think all us minorites look alike.
Posted 13 Sep 2006 at 1:25 pm ¶
Merq wrote:
The greater danger is that he’s hyping this epiphany as “proof” that his show will foster “understanding” between people.
Posted 13 Sep 2006 at 7:19 pm ¶
dcmc wrote:
I think JP’s ignorance is not uncommon in the U.S. but acting it out n proud certainly exudes stupidity on his behalf; but what I am curious about this comment “just spent 39 days people from Korea”, does it mean a Korean could have won?
Posted 14 Sep 2006 at 1:41 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
DCMC:
Maybe 39 days is the length of the contest, and more than one person on the “Asian” team is Korean?
I dunno, the only reality show I watch is Project Runway.
Posted 14 Sep 2006 at 8:17 am ¶
gatamala wrote:
Lyonside -
WOT? Pashto, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmens, Kazakhs, & Kyrgyz can’t play??
THIS IS RACIST!!
Posted 14 Sep 2006 at 10:19 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Gatamala:
*snicker* I honestly was afraid of the spelling of the all the “istans” states left over from the Soviet disintegration…
But for everyone’s edification, including mine:
http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/as.htm
Posted 14 Sep 2006 at 1:00 pm ¶