Ed is probably slightly different because of the effort you can see he is putting in yes he is the worst dancer but he is dancing far better and harder than I would have foreseen. I like seeing Ed every week and am glad he is still in.

Melvin didn't seem to be putting in that level of effort and if there had been a dance off he would have gone.

Tameka wasn't finalist standard but probably should have got to week 5 or 6 but she ended up in the bottom two. if she had been against a worse dancer then she would have stayed but she was against Laura who was also a shock bottom two. Neither of them should have been there.

Naga probably should have gone week 2. She did pick it up but I think most of us started to feel she didn't want to be there and there were definite issues with her and Pasha. You could see it

I think it probably should have been Melvin out week one, Naga week two and Anastasia week three but people vote in different ways. Not sure any of it is racism,

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DR_xCPBAkc8/hqdefault.jpg

and

http://images.radiotimes.com/namedim...nal/119767.jpg

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Well I suppose people say things are too white so someone is going to say something is too black. Personally I couldn't give a stuff who is in what as long as they are there on merit or in the case of some productions as they are a popular name that helps that production, not because of a colour, religion or any other statistic ( of course some roles will be colour specific if it was a real person)


But the argument seems to have moved to many of us are racist but just don't know we are , so an argument on behalf of some that people cannot actually argue back as such as the accusation is we do not know we have a bias as it is unconscious so therefore no way of disproving it, a very clever way to accuse people of being racist though as whatever you argue back the reply is that you do not do it consciously

Nobody is calling anybody racist. If you were to stop taking personal offence at a general point, you might actually hear what the point is.

People are saying that unconscious bias plays a part in choosing a Strictly contestant to vote for and ONE ASPECT of that is race. Another is gender. There are, I imagine, many many others.

It's just a percentage thing. If a certain proportion of the audience has the aspect of unconscious bias that includes race, then a black contestant is a percentage point or two less likely to get enough votes to stay in the competition. This doesn't mean everybody who watches Strictly needs some racism workshops. It's just how it is. It doesn't mean a black contestant will always fail early in the show because Britons are bunch of KKK wannabes - it just means they are that bit more likely to go early than the white contestants. Just that bit.

Two non-Strictly examples of this that have already been given on this thread:

Studies show that when asked to pick the person who has spoken most in a set situation, participants are more likely to choose the women even though it is the men who have actually spoken most. This is a gender bias - women who dominate the conversation for 5 seconds are noticed more than men who dominate the conversation for 5 minutes. The participants who wrongly identified the women don't go about being sexist pigs all day long: they're just used to men dominating conversations so don't notice it but do when it's a woman.

Studies show that recruiters are more likely to choose job applicants with white-sounding names for an interview shortlist than they are applicants with black or brown-sounding names even though the CVs are IDENTICAL. This comes as a complete surprise to the recruiters who do not consider themselves racist.

Neither of these examples are contested by other researchers. They have been replicated time and again with the same results.

I ask again - why should Strictly be exempt from trends we KNOW happen in most other arenas in life? Why is it so personally offensive to people to acknowledge this?

Yet none of those claiming Tamekas exit was racist will accept that people may have just voted for who they liked, the argument as I said is that there is an unconscious bias , no acceptance that people may have chosen anyone else based on the fact they know them better , they like their dancing better etc etc there has to be an "ism" in there .

And if no one is calling anyone racist can you explain why the thread exists ? surely you cannot have racist voting without racists , can you ?

Oh and I am not taking anything personally I am simply stating a fact, the argument has been that the racism is an unconscious bias so if anyone denies it they are told that the bias is unconscious so they couldn't know , cheap way to try and win a point with no evidence if you ask me. Odd though that this unconscious bias is aimed at the public vote and not the Judges who were the ones who sent Tameka home .

I am consciously biased....towards voting for the best dancers.

For that reason, it would never occur to me to vote for Melvin, Naga or Tameka.

But it does occur to me that I should vote for Ore and Danny (who happens to be dancing with Oti)

You haven't read what I said at all.

It isn't about individuals being racist.

It isn't about race being the ONLY factor in people's decision making.

It hasn't been suggested that the ONLY reason Tameka went early is because she is black.

Nobody has said at any point that it is any of those things. You're responding to points that haven't been made.

It is about people in general being influenced by unconscious biases - only ONE of which may be race - as we all are influenced by unconscious biases and various stereotypes both negative and positive. And that this means a black contestant in Strictly has a slight handicap in vote-catching that means it's quite likely they are a few/several/some percentage points more likely to be eliminated early.

How do you explain the two examples I gave above? Do you think the recruiters and study participants who chose wrong were lying when they said they were not racist or sexist? That they only pretended to be shocked by the results? Or do you think, perhaps, that influences such as unconscious bias and internalising stereotypes caused the results? Cos it has to be one or the other, right?

I think you've failed to understand that who people relate to and like is affected by our unconscious biases.

An example is how people can judge people's intelligence based on accent or persona (manner) but deny consioualy that there is deference I this country based on class. The unconscious bias in this case favours the privately educated or "higher" classes.

It's similar to how some people feel more comfortable with a man in charge. Are they misogynists? It's debateable but their biases make it harder for a woman to succeed. Can a woman win a vote? Yes. But they have to prove themselves more and the path is harder.

I have no problem accepting that we have biases, conscious and unconscious, which will influence our preferences and votes, but I question whether race has any more influence on votes that any of the myriad other variables that are influencing us.

From memory, it appears that early boots are usually older contestants. Is that ageism, or is it harder to dance well as you get older? This year Lesley is bucking the trend, so there may well be a "she's marvelous for her age" bias which she's benefiting from. Have we had a winner over 40 yet? Pamela got to the final but lost to a younger contestant. Was that a manifestation of the ageism bias?

When a young man wins there are accusations that it's all down to the ovary voters.

When Alesha, Ramps or Louis win we're told they probably wouldn't have, had they been blacker (and don't forget the ovary vote for two of them).

Add into the mix how witty, charming, interesting, humble, loud, quiet, bland, smug, beige, confident, timid, dull, false etc etc we find any individual one of them.

Has anybody provided a convincing argument that race is a more powerful bias than any other?

I fail to see the relevance. In the example, recruiters are choosing between two unknown quantities based on the information given in a CV. They are therefore reliant upon scant information to differentiate and make a choice.

In SCD, people are choosing between actual dances that really happened which they saw with their own eyes. They also will have an insight into the performers' personas (both celeb and pro) from the videos, the judges' comments section and the Clauditorium to have formed a view on how hard working/likable/talented/well matched the pairing is.

The example you cite, whilst it certainly proves unconscious bias in that set of circumstances, cannot really be extrapolated to demonstrate that unconscious bias is present in SCD voting. The original question was 'is the voting on Strictly a tiny bit racist?' the consensus seems to be 'probably not, and we certainly haven't seen/heard anything that proves that it is, and even if it were it would be to such a minute degree as to be statistically insignificant.'

But doesn't that conclusion prove the point. If unconscious bias is proven but the majority fail to acknowledge it then it is likely an ongoing factor.

It isn't looking dodgy, it's no different to every other year where there's a "comedy"/much worse than the others who are left contestant, which Ed Balls clearly is. Lots of people find those contestants entertaining at first or want to see if they will get any better, so they vote to keep them in for a few weeks. He forgot his routine on Saturday, so add in a shedload of sympathy votes and he got through. He might not be so lucky over the next few weeks, though I suspect Anastacia will be eliminated before him. Usually it all sorts itself out by Blackpool or so and then only the good dancers are left.

No, because as I said, the cases are not comparable. Your example proves that where limited differentiation is available, ie identical CVS with just a different name, then people demonstrate unconscious bias. This does not mean it can be assumed that when a comprehensive set of differentiators is in place the same unconscious bias is a factor.

You are just guessing that it does and seeking to justify that guess, which does not equate to proof.

FWIW - you are making total sense and I agree with everything you are saying.

Some people are just not getting it and have just taken the word 'racist' to heart as if it has been directed at them personally. But all this was noted within a couple of pages and many, many pages later, the same people are still saying the same things.

I don't think there are any minds that are going to be changed here.

Ore Oduba won't win SCD cos he's fully dark. I bet my SCD theme underpants he won't win cos of his colour.

I don't think Ore will be out next but I doubt he'll win, don't think Danny & Oti will either. Oti must think she's still in South Africa.

Not with our weather.

My position is not far from that one. There is racism in the UK, and race can also have much more subtle influences (for example as in the "mirror hypothesis" that's sometimes been discussed in the Big Brother forum). No one knows how much it affects Strictly voting, but it's probably enough to make a difference in very close results.

(Re unconscious bias, there's some interesting stuff that can be found by looking up Implicit Association Test.)

However:

(1) We don't know that any of the Strictly votes so far have been so close. I think you said 1 or 2% in an earlier post, and no one can be sure race doesn't have that much effect. But we don't know that any of the vote totals were that close.

(2) The judges' scores also matter. The people in the bottom 2 aren't necessarily lowest in the public vote. Often (probably usually) they aren't. So even a very close vote won't put someone in the bottom 2 unless the judge's marks also make that possible.

I don't think there's anything in the results so far that shows racial bias affected who ended up in the bottom 2. That's not to say it had no effect at all on votes. But effects can be too small, or can affect only places higher up, so that they make no difference to the bottom 2.

You are probably right that "it hasn't been suggested that the ONLY reason Tameka went early is because she is black". But some people do seem to think that it made enough difference to put her in the bottom 2. There also seem to be some who think that having three BAME contestants eliminated in a row means that racial bias is affecting who ends up in the bottom two.

I don't dismiss those as possibilities, but I also don't think any of the arguments presented so far have managed to show either of those things, or even that it's substantially more likely that racial bias made a difference than not.

So when it is the only factor it can be proved but you don't think it exists otherwise. That makes sense!

I think either can win but they will have to continue being significantly superior to the rest to do so as it's not a level playing field.

This thread has really saddened me.


'Strictly' is a light, frothy, happy entertainment show. Why analyse it to the nth degree like this and see sinister things that aren't even there.

It's like stubbling into an episode of 'Question Time'

People vote for the dancers or dances they've enjoyed, the way they always have done. Why should this year be any different.

Ore is a great dancer, so is Danny. Their skin colour is totally irrelevant except to the people who want to see an 'ism' in every aspect of our lives.

I'm surprised that people who don't vote for Greg aren't accused of being prejudiced against people with ginger hair.

It's that stupid and very, very sad.

I can enjoy an entertaining dance competition AND I can also find a rather diffierent kind of pleasure from thinking about how it's been put together and why it works in the way it does.

Obviously some of the pleasure of watching Strictly is that it can feel like an escape from a world that's really quite difficult. But it's part of that difficult world, so inequalities and unfairnesses will inevitably creep in.

What a sad comment.

So bored with the racism card being played at every opportunity.

The BBC make sure they tick all the boxes by ensuring all shows have every creed and colour .. infact if you want to play the racism card they are actually anti white British.

If they had their way then I am sure that the winner would be from an ethnic minority.

If they could rig the voting & do an ad campaign showing their preferred choice then they would.

The public just want to vote for who they like or who can dance and I'm sorry lefty liberals some times it's not the way that you demand nor for the reasons that you think.

A mere point of info:

The term "playing the race card" comes from an 1800s cartoon in Punch magazine, depicting Abraham Lincoln playing cards with a Confederate soldier. The last card in Lincoln's hand bore an image of the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves after the American Civil War.

The usage to shut down any argument suggesting something might have a racist aspect to it was popularised in Britain by Peter Griffith, the Conservative candidate in the infamous by election campaign in 1964 in which he used the slogan “If you want a n*gger for a neighbour, vote Labour.”

If you want people to take your anti-racist credentials and thinking seriously, it is probably better not to use this shibboleth.