This is new: ABC announces first black Bachelorette
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Undefeatable
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Rachel Lindsay has become the first African American lead to be cast on the romantic reality shows the Bachelorette or the Bachelor.
The announcement was made on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show on Monday evening, after days of rumors that the show’s producers were poised to cast an African American for the first time in more than 30 seasons.
While being interviewed on Good Morning America on Tuesday, Lindsay said: “I don’t feel added pressure. I’m honored to have this opportunity and to represent myself as an African American woman.”
ABC boss Channing Dungey, who became the first black woman to head a network TV channel, said that the show would cast an African American lead soon while speaking at the TCAs, saying that diversity had improved on the shows.
The two shows’ lack of diverse contestants has been criticized for years, and a lawsuit was brought against the production company and the show’s creator, Mike Fleiss, in 2012 by Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson, two African American men who had auditioned for the Bachelor.
The class-action suit claimed that the company and Fleiss had “knowingly, intentionally, and as a matter of corporate policy refused to cast people of color in the role of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette”, since the shows started in 2002.
The case was thrown out by a judge in October 2012, after she ruled the show’s casting was protected by the first amendment. In 2011, Fleiss put the lack of diversity down to the fact minority contestants rarely come forward to appear on the show. “We always want to cast for ethnic diversity. It’s just that for whatever reason, they don’t come forward. I wish they would.”
Last year Fusion reported that 59% of the black contestants who have been on the show exited within the first two weeks. After the lawsuit in 2013, the show cast its first non-white lead in the Bachelor with Venezuelan former footballer Juan Pablo Galavis – but the show’s creators were criticized for choosing a light-skinned south American.
In a statement Robert Mills, senior vice-president of alternative series, specials and late night for ABC, said of Lindsay: “She is an accomplished, confident and beautiful woman who knows what she wants in life. We all look forward to joining her on the joyous journey as she looks for that one special man.”
Lindsay, who is a lawyer, has already featured in the Bachelor, and will become the Bachelorette on 22 May when the show’s 13th season begins.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/14/black-bachelorette-rachel-lindsay-the-bachelor
I wonder if she even ? with brothers.
Comments
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She chooses a white dude and he decides not to marry her a couple months later. Bet.
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KingFreeman wrote: »She chooses a white dude and he decides not to marry her a couple months later. Bet.
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Yeah she gone pick a white dude. She smiling a little bit to hard
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Also...
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I don't watch the show, but congrats to her.
I wonder what the lineup of suitors is going to look like.. -
She look like she just finished cooning in that pic.
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don't know if y'all have ever heard of it, but there is this show called unReal and it's basically like a fictionalized version of the bachelor/bachelorette, focusing more on the behind the scenes ? with the producers. but anyway, one of the main storylines last season was about it being a black bachelor. so you mean to tell me it took the fictional bachelor having black people as the main ones for these mfs to decide it was finally okay to have one irl? smh
don't matter to me really tho, i have never seen a single episode of either show in my life and don't plan to either
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It will be the highest Bachelorette/Bachelor season in the 1st few weeks until she picks a white dude.
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White viewers will drop off
Black viewers wont increase
She will choose a white dude who couldn't be less interested in her
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so who gonna watch? im trying to see if she pick that white dude. theyll probably only have like one and a half brothas there anyway. one lite skinnt and the other mixed with a white father.
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They was on the Breakfast Club talking about everyone gotta watch this or they won't do it again. Really? Is that what we have to make sure continues. Black bachelorettes? ? ? Ever black first ain't significant.
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Trash Tv... people should take this a moment in black history .. trash tv is trash tv..
Thanks Bobby and Whitney -
White people on theses shows arent just white people they are extremely white...like the type to set up a play date for thier dogs white people.
They aint tryna ? with a Ayesha -
She look like she dont date black dudes
And built like dry-erase marker
She cute tho
Look like a young Megan Good mixed with Keke Palmer
Smash -
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I don't watch the show, but congrats to her.
I wonder what the lineup of suitors is going to look like..
... more or less. -
Seriously though, I hope brothers sign up so that she doesn't have any excuse.
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Is she mainly into white guys? Otherwise I'd suggest making it mostly black men with a token white guy or two thrown in. But it will be the other way around.
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Man ppl really up in arms about this ? ...
Any black person not in control of their own (communications) platform is subjected to be sat out like a ? put on display to advance the owner of the platforms agenda anyway....
Can't expect too much this is America.
But, it will be funny if she picks a mixed guy...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -
leftcoastkev wrote: »Man ppl really up in arms about this ? ...
Any black person not in control of their own (communications) platform is subjected to be sat out like a ? put on display to advance the owner of the platforms agenda anyway....
Can't expect too much this is America.
But, it will be funny if she picks a mixed guy...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Why would that be funny? Mixed people are the best -
Undefeatable wrote: »
Rachel Lindsay has become the first African American lead to be cast on the romantic reality shows the Bachelorette or the Bachelor.
The announcement was made on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show on Monday evening, after days of rumors that the show’s producers were poised to cast an African American for the first time in more than 30 seasons.
While being interviewed on Good Morning America on Tuesday, Lindsay said: “I don’t feel added pressure. I’m honored to have this opportunity and to represent myself as an African American woman.”
ABC boss Channing Dungey, who became the first black woman to head a network TV channel, said that the show would cast an African American lead soon while speaking at the TCAs, saying that diversity had improved on the shows.
The two shows’ lack of diverse contestants has been criticized for years, and a lawsuit was brought against the production company and the show’s creator, Mike Fleiss, in 2012 by Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson, two African American men who had auditioned for the Bachelor.
The class-action suit claimed that the company and Fleiss had “knowingly, intentionally, and as a matter of corporate policy refused to cast people of color in the role of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette”, since the shows started in 2002.
The case was thrown out by a judge in October 2012, after she ruled the show’s casting was protected by the first amendment. In 2011, Fleiss put the lack of diversity down to the fact minority contestants rarely come forward to appear on the show. “We always want to cast for ethnic diversity. It’s just that for whatever reason, they don’t come forward. I wish they would.”
Last year Fusion reported that 59% of the black contestants who have been on the show exited within the first two weeks. After the lawsuit in 2013, the show cast its first non-white lead in the Bachelor with Venezuelan former footballer Juan Pablo Galavis – but the show’s creators were criticized for choosing a light-skinned south American.
In a statement Robert Mills, senior vice-president of alternative series, specials and late night for ABC, said of Lindsay: “She is an accomplished, confident and beautiful woman who knows what she wants in life. We all look forward to joining her on the joyous journey as she looks for that one special man.”
Lindsay, who is a lawyer, has already featured in the Bachelor, and will become the Bachelorette on 22 May when the show’s 13th season begins.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/14/black-bachelorette-rachel-lindsay-the-bachelor
I wonder if she even ? with brothers.
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Undefeatable wrote: »ineedpussy wrote: »so who gonna watch? im trying to see if she pick that white dude. theyll probably only have like one and a half brothas there anyway. one lite skinnt and the other mixed with a white father.
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KingFreeman wrote: »She chooses a white dude and he decides not to marry her a couple months later. Bet.
If she choose a white dude..........She's a ?
If she choose a black man.............She's a racist
Fake outrage will run rampant on Twitter and Black Twitter
Nobody, or almost nobody, is gonna say that. -
True equality is when a black woman can get smutted out like 29 other white women on tv.
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Usually the slim, chocolate chicks go for the white guys so I had an idea of how she'll look before I seen her. It's only 3 men of color so yup, it'll be a white guy.
