Repugnant Reality TV Show Exploits Bigotry and Stereotypes

This TV tidbit renders me almost speechless with anger, so I'll let blogger Pam's House Blend tell you about it....

"A new reality series in which three white, self-described 'Christian' families get to pick their new neighbors from among a group of minority families is already drawing fire. And it hasn't even aired yet.

The show is called 'Welcome to the Neighborhood' and it's coming to ABC July 10. The show was filmed over a four-week period last winter in a suburban housing development in Austin, Texas.

" 'I will not tolerate a homosexual couple coming into this neighborhood,' one of the neighbors, Jim Stewart, says on the show about one of the candidate families — a gay couple with an adopted baby. 'I want a family similar to what we are,' asserts another neighbor, John Bellamy, in a statement that would seem to dismiss at least six out of the seven candidate families.

The diverse group includes African-American, Caucasian, Korean, Latino and gay families, plus one family in which husband and wife are heavily tattooed, and another in which mom and dad are devoted to the practice of Wicca....

The show's first two episodes are filled with statements such as those above. Along with the show's premise, in which neighbors get to choose who will move into a vacant house on their cul-de-sac, the attitude reflected in the judging families' statements is raising hackles among fair-housing and gay anti-defamation activists....

The winning family gets a four-bedroom, three-bath home, plus furnishings, upgrades and two years' worth of property taxes paid for them — a prize worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $900,000...

'The show perpetuates the problems of housing discrimination, segregation and racism in America, and it undermines the fair-housing rights of a person's ability to go buy a house without any approval or judgment from a neighbor," says Shanna Smith, president of the Washington-based National Fair Housing Alliance....' "

Of course I'm angry about people experiencing discrimination and humiliation based on the color of their skin, their culture, their appearances, their sexual preference or whatever. It's wrong and immoral, and it's offensive.

But I'm equally angry about the unspoken implication that such repugnant behavior is typical of Christians. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most active Christians are loving people who would never engage in hateful bigotry and stereotyping.

Disney/ABC should be deeply ashamed as it grabs for ratings by appealing to the basest instincts of gossip and greed. Sadly, this crass show may do well in the ratings race, and successfully drive a wider cultural and political wedge between conservative Christians and the rest of the US.

Please...turn off your TV. Do not watch this trash. America, both liberal and conservative, is better than this.

Scroll down to the bottom of Pam's House Blend to find the Disney/ABC address, email and phone number where you can lodge a complaint about this despicable program.