Saturday Straight Talk: How Bravo Shows Hurt Race Relations

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     Bravo TV has been the go to network for viewing reality television that features women. From the extremely popular "Real Housewives" franchise to shows like "Married To Medicine" and "Toned Up", the network pretty much has the market on where to see women living life, often fiercely. The one thing that I have noticed lately though, which is really bothering me, is that Bravo has sort of segregated the shows so they only feature one race or another. For instance, the New York, New Jersey, and Orange County series feature only Caucasian women while the Atlanta version of the show only features African American women (Kim, who was white, left the show for her own spin off). Up until this past season, the Beverly Hills installment of the franchise joined its counterparts in featuring only one ethnicity, and that means that Miami was the only show that has featured more than one race since the beginning. Bravo has launched a few new shows such as "Blood, Sweat, and Heels", "Southern Charm", and "Toned Up", all which feature cast members who are all of the same race.
   This, to me, begs the question, since we are living in an integrated society, why does the television have to segregate us? It's not only Bravo who does this, but most major networks do this as well. Instead, shouldn't TV show that people of all races have friendships, hardships, and love toward one another? The answer is obviously yes, but, for some reason, I guess television executives have a hard time with giving us the gift of seeing people of all different walks of life sharing life together. In not being able to provide us a realistic mirror of life, they are sending a message to those who watch the programs that we all have a group we belong in and should stay in, and this message will obviously hurt us as we go into our future as a society.

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    So what can we do about this? Well, it's going to take a bold person to let us see the reality of life without separating us into categories. After all, that's how they feel they get viewers, by marketing a show to one segment of the population or another, and having a show where more than one group of people is represented is allegedly risky business in Hollywood. So I guess all we can do in the meantime is ask for change and hope we get it like I am doing now, asking Bravo and other networks to show us a more diverse and real image of life. I won't be surprised at all if we don't see this for a few years though. After all, "The Real Housewives of New York City", set in one of the most diverse places in the world, is to premier in a few weeks, and it features a completely Caucasian cast.