Well if all people are equal, that implies that racism/nationalism/whateverism isn't only a WASP issue.

WASP = White Anglosaxon Protestant

I'm not suggesting racism never applies anywhere in the world, I have personal experience which tells me otherwise...what I am saying is I believe in a game show such as BB it is the character of the housemates which dictates their likelyhood to be voted out that is relavant, not their colour.

And you are quite right, racism is not only a white anglo-saxon trait.

I think Rwanda showed that
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1374918.stm

Put more succinctly by Doc Shmok, but the biggest pile of nonsense I've ever heard. No, really, if it weren't such an important issue it would be funny. Maybe it even is funny.

Why?

It pityfully seems to be a human trait, that a proportion of the majority group if uncontrolled by a state system tries to hit on some minority.

Oh dear, I didn't read Elderflower's post properly. The air conditioning at the office wasn't working this morning, and I think my brain frosted up.

As you were.

That's OK Histeria, we all do that sometimes

I believe racism can only be tackled effectively once people are aware of how and where it exists. This is an on-going process and one that I am continually learning. The more I learn, the more amazed I am at how subtlety it can exists. (The Dr Winston 'Child of our Times' highlighting racial stereotypes was fascinating and alarming).

Bullying has been discussed inside and outside the bb house alot for this series. I hope the next series opens up racism discussions wider for all of us.

Good we are establishing racism is real....and we know racists make judgements based on race.....Now when we consider the white population is 92% compared to 8% of every other racial group combined in this country.....If every race has the same percentage of racists then we can clearly see how demographically black contestants will be affected....

Could be affected, since there are no clear figures on that percentage.

And you will never get those, if the subject remains as explosive as it is and everybody even mentioning the problem gets bullied.

I still think there are at least two forms of racism.

The aggressive conscious (type a) and the subconscious not intended one (type b).

type a could possibly be estimated from BNP figures and projected forward to other groups on the assumption, all people on the planet are equal. But that wouldn't include the ones that don't admit it.

type b being the grey area, the ones that just grew up at different times and possibly don't mean any harm.

I doubt you can do anything about type a racism.

If we are going to start playing with numbers, regarding there ever being a black BB winner or that black HM's are voted off first because of racial prejudice, then we should be looking at a different set of figures.

Davina herself has said that the majority of BB voters are woman which then surely translates as the majority of racists in this country being women...................Of course, that's if you believe this old nonsense about BB winners and losers being defined by race.

If, for instance, in BB6 we had the majority of H/M's not predominantly white (if Endemol tries to re-address these issues) & yet one of the minority whites still won the competition, how would that be perceived by everyone?.

Would we still say that the best person won & accept the result or would we continue to raise the racist issue once again?.

I think it would depend on the character of the winner and as always the character of their supporters on here to be honest. I think if a winner was chosen purely on demographics in the house then BB would not be worth watching at all as the winner would obviously be on a pre selected shortlist before the show even starts.

I sort of get what you are saying Mes but do you think the winner should be solely chosen according to race rather than personality then?

I understood it just as a statement re racism and the effects it could have on voting behaviour.

Ah, but this theory misses out certain variables - and would only apply if the entire population watched and voted for BB - which it doesn't. It doesn't take into account the demographic of racists in the UK against the demographic of BB viewers, and that the two demographics may not cross over at all, or may cross over more than average - skewing your statistic so that it may affect contestants more than expected, or may not affect them at all.

Personally, I can't see your avarge BNP thug or ancient bigot being the type to text/call into this kind of show, so your stats don't work without far more thorough analysis.

WHY is it assumed that rascism is ONLY practiced by 'white' people..
it makes no difference whatsoever if people belong to a majority OR minority group...racism exists in 'both'.
yes! here in the UK, rascism exists within non-white communities too...believe me, i KNOW...and i'm not talking about 'jokes'...for some misguided reason, some folk think it's okay or turn a blind eye...
the pc-crew have crusaded miles past the issue and neglected the WHOLE.
only when 'racial laws/guidance' properly applys 'itself' to ALL, will there be any advancement in setting an example of racial-harmony )

Yo .. but then you would also have to include the non-voters influence on voting like with general elections, the amount of money racists have/are willing to spent with multiple votes.

Start reading here

http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/...&postcount=250

#250

Quite. This is another variable that wasn't included, so the theory is far more comlex than Mesostim has suggested.

yeh! i've seen that post earlier...and i feel the same exasperation when i hear/read people scrutinise when scrutiny is barely needed...i would just like to see the issue of rascism dealt with firmly, but most importantly, Fairly.

Of course racism exists in both....It's just that 92% of the population are white and only 8% from all other racial groups put together.....

Let’s do the maths then.

92% of the population is white and every other racial group comprises of the remaining 8%. Now I assume no one wants to discuss subconscious racism, which always seems to be glossed over very quickly in these discussions, so we’ll go straight to overt racists. Shall we say that every race has 10%* who are racist enough that it will affect how they react to someone of a different skin colour…obviously this is without all the subtle shades of racism being thrown out of the equation. That means for every group of 1000 people 100 will be racist. Of those 100 we will have 92 who are white and 8 who are from every other racial group (unless someone means to suggest that any group has a higher likelihood to be racist…..but that wouldn’t be equal would it and would need to be proved in some way). Those 92 will react negatively to any black contestant and presumably the 8 will react negatively to any white contestant.

That’s just over eleven to one.

Twelve people go into the Big Brother house funnily enough. We assume then that 10% of 8% (0.8%) of the population will hate every single white person (usually 10 or 11 of them) and 10% of 92% (9.2%) of the population will hate any of other racial groups in the house (usually 1 or 2 of them). So 0.8% are spreading there hate over 10 people and 9.2% between ,at most, 2. Already we can see that a black (or other minority group) contestant is already at a demographic disadvantage.

An eviction comes up between one white contestant and one from the other racial groups. Let’s say 100,000 votes are cast. We know that the 10% of the 92% majority group will want to get rid of the person they hate most because of their skin colour (unless they have worked extremely hard to win people around, but that is hardly a level playing field is it). Treating everything as equal and not assuming any group votes more than any other that’s 92,000 people of which 9,200 will be racially influenced on their decision. That’s near enough for Davina to comments that the voting is close. If half a million vote it goes up to 46,000, one million the number is 92,000, quite a handicap. Being fair we must also consider that other groups are equally racist. So 10% of the remaining 8% are also affected by racism. So of our 100,000 example figure 800 will be allowing racism to affect their decision adversely against a white participant . That’s 9,200 compared to 800. By the million mark that become 92,000 to 8,000.**

Obviously popularity plays its part but there is that need to put in the extra work, which again is hardly a level playing field. It’s not all down to personality if so many people are ready to be influenced by race. Cleary of course I’m not calling the British people racist…..In my example 90% of the British people judge entirely on personality and don’t allow any racially prejudicial thoughts to influence their decision making process, so in fact I’m saying an overwhelming amount of British people are in fact not in the slightest bit racist. I’m also clearly not pointing my finger at people individually, so no one should feel the need to believe I am personally accusing anybody of anything at all. My aim here has purely to be to point out how racism can influence a vote, especially as the number of votes increases.

*I take this as a number that can readily show how racism can affect the show demographically ….Its entirely open for debate and I don’t assert the figure as a fact. Reduce or enlarge the figure to meet what you believe the correct figure to be. Take into consideration we have removed anything that isn’t overt racism that could be and in fact is part of the wider picture.

**Assuming a negative vote. In a positive vote a racist would simply be influenced by race not to cast a positive vote for someone, reducing the number of potential votes, again by the same proportion of 9.2% and 0.8% respectively of which could then be subdivided by those involved in the vote.

It is more complex......but not so much that racism has no effect whatsoever....which seems some are suggesting.....

But given multiple voting and unknown numbers, it becomes very blurry. I don't think anyone doubts, that if you propose that racism exists and there is a majority of one group it couldn't theoretically influence the vote.

It remains complex and not easy to answer without hard facts. But facts are hard to come by I assume.

So racism as a decisive influence on BB winners remains unproven.

Are you proposing that certain racial groups are more likely to multi vote than others? is there any proof for this claim? Given there are 92% white people to only 8% of the rest of the other groups put together how much multiple voting do you think it will take to blur the edges?


Racism does have an affect.....I'm not quick to disregard it.

The original poster didn't even mention racism.

Yet as expected people come down on the thread like a ton of bricks going on about "Race Cards", and "allegations" etc.

How can a "Race Card" be played if the original post was an open question?
It's become a cliche that some people say without even thinking about what it means now. How was the original post playing a "Card" of any kind?

As far as I can see it was a valid question.
You are either interested in the reasons behind the question contained in the actual content of the post,..or you simply ignore the thread.

I just don't see why some people feel it's necessary to suddenly go into panic mode whenever race, colour, or ethnicity is raised as a topic, and I can't see any reasonable reason for criticising a poster, and judging them, making assumptions about their motives, just for starting a thread.

I think it's a bit much when posters get accused of playing "race cards", when I can't see what's to be gained by playing a "card". What is the original poster supposed to gain by playing a "race card"?

I think some people get too defensive and go into panic mode whenever race or ethinicity is brought up.
Why not show restraint when an urge takes over to judge posters and trying to second guess them, and actually discuss the content of the post instead, ....or simply ignore it if you don't have an interest in the subject matter?

I find the subject matter of these threads more interesting than frenzied support, or fanatical hatred of housemates threads. but they always seem to get bogged down with pages of people saying "You shouldn't be talking about this, you should only talk about the superficial aspects of the show".

I haven't posted much for a few days,..simply due to the pettiness targeted at posters who start threads that I can learn something from, find interesting views, or simply enjoy because they delve behind the superficial elements of BB5.

When posters condemn other posters as a gut reaction to a subject that they don't want other people talking about, instead of just leaving the thread and looking for another one that does interest them....it makes me stop posting. As I'm sure it does others too.

It appears that it's way to take the thread off topic by trying to stifle discussion of the subject by psychoanalysing the poster, instead of concentrating on the actual content of the post.
If a person had anything of substance to say, then that tact wouldn't be necessary.