Usamah “Sam” Husseini

by Sam Husseini

I've been having trouble sleeping and, with Letterman off the air this summer, I found myself watching the dating show Studs. After a while, I notice something remarkable: the show is segregated.

Unlike the other major dating program, Love Connection, Studs doesn't have racially "mixed" panels. They have all-white panels and all-black panels; they've also had all Asian panels, though they occasionally have Asians with Europeans. Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, Latinos, Native Americans, and other ethnic groups are invisible -- apparently they don't date at all.

Why would the producers of "Studs" seek to segregate people? Perhaps they are afraid of contestants saying: "His long dark fudge dreamsicle was just yummy." Or "I wanted to plunge into her wet white gene pool." Or "She was my playboy bunny; She was my jungle bunny." Or "He sure could shake and wiggle -- for a white boy."

Actually, a major culprit seems to be cowardice. When I called the top producers at Studs, which is syndicated on the Murdoch-owned FOX network, were zip-lipped about the reasons for this apparent policy. But an assistant producer conceded that they haven not had "mixed" panels, saying that Studs is concerned that affiliates and advertisers would get edgy. Such thinking leads to the most regressive elements in our society determining what policies are followed.

(When I called up Love Connection, I was told that they question participants about whether they would be OK dating someone of a different ethnicity, and they ask if they actually have dated someone of a different ethnicity. They only put people on a "mixed" panel if they answer yes to both questions.)

Neither do the major media generally do the public a favor when they rhetorically tell people of different ethnicity to learn to live together, while providing us with few images of people from diverse backgrounds caring for one another. If the networks were to begin showing such images, however, they would not be engaging in a public service, rather, they would simply be documenting our reality.

As I was writing this piece, I learned that the show has been cancelled. "Yeah, you're looking at reruns now," the sweet-sounding old secretary I talked to was disappointed,  "Shame, it was just getting good, too. The show started out sort of raunchy and they were just starting to have some nice people on, but I guess it was too little too late." Sort of like my little crusade.

By the logic of the market place, perhaps if they had "mixed" couples, it would have invigorated their numbers.

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that "separate-but-equal" status for people of different ethnicities was unconstitutional. That ruling applied to public schools and other government services, but "separate-but-equal" is a practice our major media continue.

There are exceptions to this, for example the "cop shows" with the "salt and pepper" police teams. But contrast this apparent progress with the fact that there has not been a prominent African American/European American couple since The Jeffersons. Despite the Cosby Show's long run and the family's middle class orientation, none of the Cosby kids dated whites. It seems that blacks and whites can easily come together to fight, occasionally to laugh, but rarely to love.

News outlets are guilty of separatism as well. The Associated Press puts news of specific interest to African Americans under the heading "urban," though it includes news from South Africa and Haiti. More disturbing, however, is that the AP's "urban news" is categorized under "entertainment." How entertaining.  The real negative fallout, however, is that few white, mainstream journalists are likely come across such information when it is categorized in such a manner.

Even shows that are unusually courageous on other issues are reluctant to have black and white couples. For example, Roseanne, a show that has portrayed issues of gender, class and sexual orientation with rare frankness, has stayed away from "black/white" couples.

Shows like Studs do not pretend to judge people on the content of their character; but neither should they segregate people on the color of their skin.