Entertainment

So, Only White People Can Find Love on TV?

by Alicia Lutes

So, there is but a few days between us and the premiere of ABC's True Love Forever competition series, The Bachelorette. And — drum roll please — Andi Dorfman's men have been revealed. Look at them all! So... exactly like every other season of one of these shows. You know what's most revealing about the show after seeing the 26 lovelorn nincompoops? Just how insistent The Bachelor/TheBachelorette franchise is in their quest to remain as un-diverse as possible. Because apparently only white people can find true love on TV?

Why, Bachelor/The Bachelorette producers, do you continue to insist on such a glaring lack of diversity? Why must you only ever tow the line of what, I imagine, are some minimal requirements of diversity? Did the myriad think pieces, Internet commentar ies , and a highly publicized lawsuit not get the message across clear enough to you? One that universally seems to assert that people want diversity, especially on a show that's about finding love in our modern times?

Perhaps there are reasons behind why you repeatedly do this. Maybe all of your bachelors and bachelorettes only like to date white people? (Does that make it their problem, then, and not yours?) What is it, really, though? Is it really that people from diverse backgrounds are not applying to be on the show? Do the producers actually believe there aren't enough non-white people out there that America will find just as ~dreamy~ as the white people who always end up winning (we use that term lightly) on this show?

And if that's the case, does your casting department not feel that it is their duty as a department of people-finders to go out there and, you know, seek out that diversity in order to accurately represent our modern society?

This is the tenth season of the Bachelorette. The TENTH. And next season of the Bachelor, it will be its 19th. NINETEENTH. You'd think in allllll those years, over allllll those seasons, someone along the way would have spoken up at ABC and demanded the series showcase a more diverse swath of America. As we say every season, this is such a shame, and absolutely shameful.

Image: ABC.com