Two African-Americans to File Suit Against ‘The Bachelor’ Creators, Citing Racism – Will Show Creators Finally Cast A Black Lead?
According to TMZ, two African American men—Christopher Johnson and Nathaniel Claybrooks—will be filing suit against the creators of the TV dating shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette citing racist casting practices.
After turning up at a casting for the show, Johnson and Claybrooks allege they were both taken aside and asked why they were there. The pair also claims they were left out of the normal auditioning process, and passed over simply because of their race.
The news of this lawsuit comes just weeks after many wondered if ABC was finally ready to cast its first black bachelor. Although there is no word on whether or not the show’s newest season will include a non-white lead, many began lobbying for Lamar Hurd, a Portland-based sportscaster, to be cast in the role.
TMZ reports Johnson and Claybrooks will be filing a class action lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday, and are apparently suing ABC, Next Entertainment, Warner Horizon Television, and the show’s creator Mike Fleiss.
What do you think of the lawsuit?
I’m torn. I do watch the show and it would be nice. But I don’t want it to turn into more stereotyping of black people or worse, another entity talking about how BW are undesirable. I lean toward saying let them keep the show lily white, if they don’t want us we don’t need to be up there.
There will never be a black Bachelor. It would cause too much controversy that networks who are concerned about maintaining a ratings status quo would rather not address. The fact is either The Bachelor will have many white women to chose from and there will be an uproar from certain segments about that, or he will pick a black woman and for white audiences it will have become “The Black Bachelor” and a good portion of them will lose interest. Then the black populace watching will proceed to make all sorts of judgments about this bachelor based on the skin tone, hair texture/authentcity, body shape and speaking voice of the black females who are chosen.
In the end the only solution will be to have the most diverse selection of women EVER and then pair him with some ethnically nondescript (but black leaning) woman so as not to “upset” anyone. Yet it won’t please anyone either and they will have the lowest ratings ever and they will vow never to diversify again because when blacks are featured, ratings suffer.
I agree we should just let it be,this aint school desegregation we are talking about here. No black person’s quality of life is diminished because they never got a chance to be on a scripted, phony television show. Either make a show geared towards a black audience (if there is thought to be some demand) or better yet, think up some new, unique quality show and put blacks in it.
This would only go on to prove that MOST white women are curious and would show their true feelings on network television. Look around people ,,,all you see is MIXED couples,,I think the MALE tv execs are the ones afraid of their women picking or being chosen ,, by a brown man. Its 2012,,, have you seen OUR president ….its time to move on.
“This would only go on to prove that MOST white women are curious and would show their true feelings on network television. Look around people ,,,all you see is MIXED couples,,I think the MALE tv execs are the ones afraid of their women picking or being chosen ,, by a brown man. Its 2012,,, have you seen OUR president ….its time to move on.”
MOST white women would most certainly tune out as MOST of them would rather see a white bachelor, The target demographic of the bachelor are white women looking for WHITE MEN. If you think a black bachelor would peek the interest of white female views then you would be sorely dissapointed my friends. The only color these networks care about is the color green and they know that a handsome black bachelor IS NOT going to bring in NOWHERE NEAR the white female viewers as a handsome white bachelor.
erick hill and so many other black men like him are such a waste of space upon this earth
i think we as a people should either chose better battles or pick a bigger weapon
Yeah. This is not the ‘type’ of show I’d expect outrage over racial casting.
I agree with both comments.
My point is that Black people don’t have to run behind white people attempting to be included where they are obviously not wanted…there are enough resources and income in our community to produce our own shows.
Damn are the brothers that pressed for some vanilla trim?
I wish blk people would file suit to have advanced math teachers in their kids schools not crap like this. It’s just some stupid reality show. God aren’t there enough of us on those stupid shows.
they are that pressed. and i agree. if black men pushed that hard for education and economic parity,our communities would be in much better shape. instead they prefer to run up behind the very race of people who shoot them dead with impunity. what losers.
@Jess
Dont be a hypocrite. At this very site and others black women. Waste far more ink talking about Eurocentric standards of beauty not being on the cover of Vogue not being on the run way….but when a black man wants to be apart of a mainstream show you want to worry about the community. You guys are slave catchers.
Qon
Are you denying that the failing of blk schools and Blk students is more important than the bachelor?
Well. It’ll only be a matter of time before VH1 or MTV creates a show like that. I mean Chad Ochocinco had that show with 0 black women.