Instead of watching Nip/Tuck last Tuesday, I mistakenly got involved in the 2-hour premiere of The Amazing Race: Family Edition. I was confident that the Black family (who also happen to be black… coincidence?) would not win the big prize, but I wanted to see how they would do and give my support, since the mother is my soror. I was also intrigued by the addition of little children, and I was wondering how the challeneges would be organized to keep the playing field level.

I should go ahead and say that I doubt I’ll be watching too much of the rest of the season… not because the Blacks were eliminated in the first round, but because I just don’t like the format. It looks like they’re going to be driving around everyplace, and so far they’ve only been in New York and Pennsylvania. I guess airline travel for 40 people is a bit much. 40 people is a bit much for anything, actually, and the choice to keep the number of initial teams at 10 while doubling the team size made for a whole bunch of yelling and confusion. You know how some people claim all black people look alike? Well, just leave it to say that I got confused. I fell a little in love with the family with the two little kids, and with the “widow and kids” (why is that the descriptor they give her? Can’t she just be a mom?) and I want the Brooklyn family to hurry up and be eliminated, because those boys and how they yell and lambast their mother is too much for me to deal with.

I’m pretty dissapointed in the Black family; it was obvious that they were going to get knocked out early on because they weren’t shown on camera very much. (Reality shows never invest too much airtime in the teams that don’t make it very far.) I wanted to take a paddle and hit those two little boys; why the heck were they crying in that row boat? Why did the little one start whining for help when he “almost fell” into the creek? Put your arm in that water and get the bucket! They just didn’t have the competitive streak they needed to have.

So with their exit, we have nine families of various and sundry whitefolk. Listen to that. Nine families, and they are all white. No Asians, no Hispanics, no Indians.. I mean, damn– can we at least get a black man with a white woman and their mixed babies? Why is it that any given show can ONLY have one minority team? This is part of the reason I don’t watch TV anymore, because these production companies are so exclusive. Honestly, white people should get angry too, because their assumption is that they won’t get ratings unless they have white viewers, and white viewers don’t want to watch non-white people. And that’s just not true.

Is it?