A couple of years ago, I hosted a Code Switch episode about race and reality dating shows. It was about how in the sea of fairly racially problematic dating shows, the show “Love Island USA” was correcting some of the tropes foisted on young women of color — the correction being that these women were in the forefront of the show, being loved out loud, and winning.
“Love Island USA” is a show where a bunch of swimsuit-clad young people are plopped on an island in Fiji, and they must navigate social dynamics and increasingly ludicrous games to find a connection in the “villa” that's right for them. All of this in the hopes of winning $100,000 in the end. And since we published that Code Switch episode, viewership for the dating show has significantly increased. Maybe that increase is because of the prominence of women of color on the show being viewed as hopeful, or maybe it's because of the recent spike in online betting and people gambling on which couple will make a lasting connection?
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The current season of “Love Island USA” ends this Sunday, and while the show still frequently highlights the diversity of its islander cast (as of this writing, every couple but one includes a Black or brown person), the blind spots that have arisen this season have caused quite an uproar online. Like in previous seasons, multiplecontestants have been quietly removed from the villa, because their online digital footprint shows them using racial slurs in the past. Two Black women on the show, Melanie Moreno and Aniya Harvey have been forced to deal with certain levels of publichumiliation when it comes to several of their relationships on the island. There have been jabs at the show by calling it “Brown Paper Bag” Island, a reference to alleged colorism shown in the selection of the men allowed to stay on the island, none of them dark-skinned. There were also frequent misogynoiristic comments online about the darker-skinned Aniya.
There was a naivete when I initially thought “Love Island USA” would be some kind of panacea for the lovelorn women of color looking for a summertime diversion. But instead of a diversion, I got a reality check about that even though, as my colleague Brittany Luse said, Love Island is “pretty much always v Black,” that doesn’t necessarily protect the women of color on it or validate the women of color watching it.
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ON THE POD
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Pete Hegseth's Pentagon has been dismantling diversity initiatives and blocking the promotions of high-ranking Black officers. This week, Parker talks with The Atlantic's Clint Smith, who interviewed two dozen Black service members about the long, contradictory history of Black patriotism and what it means to serve a country that has always struggled with how to honor them.
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