Baccalaureate Matt James publicly criticizes the franchise problem

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF THE MATT JAMES SEASON OF “THE HIGH SCHOOL”.

In a powerful statement posted to his Instagram account on Monday evening, high school student Matt James unequivocally stated that “the Bachelor franchise has fallen short” when it comes to managing the career. After host Chris Harrison defended a contestant who had a troubling track record of racist behavior in “Extra,” James said the current timing of accounting for the franchise has also pushed me to re-evaluate and process what the franchise represents. my experience at The Bachelor “

James and contestant Rachael Kirkconnell finished together at the end of the season, with the 24-year-old graphic designer receiving the final rose in the unreleased finale, Reality Steve reported on January 21st. that James and Kirkconnell are no longer together, and that their breakup was ultimately precipitated by recent revelations that he had attended a formal fraternity with previews in 2018 and that he liked the photos that contained images of Confederate flags in the past.

James ’statement marks the most vocal that has been publicly about the franchise’s relationship to race since he was elected as Black Bachelor primer in June in the wake of national protests against police brutality and racism. (“It’s an honor”, James told “Good Morning America” at the time. “I will just bow to myself and how my mother raised me, and I hope that when people invite me home on Monday night they will see that I am not very different from them and see this diverse love stories are beautiful. ”)

It’s also a very unusual step for a franchise to lead to publicly criticizing the show before its season is over.

But as a result of host Chris Harrison “temporarily moving away” from the franchise after going to 15-minute dispute over “awakened police” in the first Black Bachelorette, Rachel Lindsay, in “Extra,” the stakes rose. As James wrote in his statement, he felt compelled to “address the troubling information that has come to light since we finished filming.”

“As the season progressed, it became clear that Matt’s presence on the show was exemplary of what so many POCs face on a daily basis. He and black women had to take on the additional responsibility of helping ‘The Bachelor.’ to deal with diversity issues and they were often exploited, ”a source close to James told HuffPost. “The executives of ‘The Bachelor’ have not been able to realize that launching a diverse set of contestants is not the same as creating a level playing field and opportunities. If they want to change, that means changing behind and in front of the camera. “

James has caught the wrath of some fans for not being more vocal about the franchise’s racism, especially in light of his obvious connection to Kirkconnell on the show. But it has also put her in a painful position because her journey as the first black bachelor has been overshadowed by controversy over the racist actions of both the woman she chose as the winner and the host of the show.

James can bear neither the burden of the franchise’s evils nor the weight of saving it. “The Bachelor” has had a close relationship with race – and especially Blackness – long before James ’season, and a more diverse casting doesn’t address racism built into program structures and the entertainment industry in general.

James is not even the first black protagonist to contact a white contestant with a history of racist opinions and behaviors on social media. In 2017, Lindsay’s plaintiffs included Lee Garrett, whose tweets compared the NAACP to the KKK and called Black Lives Matter a “terrorist group” (among many other racist, Islamophobic, homophobic, and misogynistic messages). emerged while the season was airing. Lindsay has publicly stated that she felt like she was framed as the “angry black woman” in her season. This month, he said that after fulfilling his contractual obligations with “The Bachelor,” he will end the franchise.

Other color contestants have reported similar experiences of tokenization, exploitation, and racist reaction that some say the program did not prepare or support. Both Kupah James, a contestant on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s The Bachelorette season, and Taylor Nolan, a contestant on Nick Viall’s “The Bachelor” season, who is now a major advocate of racial equity within the franchise, he told HuffPost during the summer, they thought they had been framed as “aggressive” villains and therefore set out to receive a massive backlash. LaNease Adams, a black woman who starred in the first season of “The Bachelor,” he recalled finding his photograph on a white supremacist website and experiencing mental health issues afterwards. I Jason Mesnick, the first and only Jewish bachelor, told HuffPost last year that the show had downplayed his Judaism, including the discouragement of breaking a glass at the 2010 televised wedding to his now-wife Molly

In 2012, two black men led a lawsuit of racial discrimination against the franchise, which was eventually dismissed on the grounds of the First Amendment. However, after the demand, starting with Sean Lowe’s season of “The Bachelor,” the casts became noticeably more diverse. But color contestants rarely get the coveted end of the series, and even when they do, they are often not given the same amount of screen time and positive attention as their white peers.

Pieper James, one of the black women of the James season, tweeted on February 11 that “Black women in this franchise must always be hyper-aware of our “grace” because no one makes them extensive to us. ” She added later that was “waiting to know the systematic changes that the franchise will evoke to combat the tokenization of BIPOC individuals“.

Until the last two weeks, no one on the executive team of “The Bachelor” has faced even the slightest consequences for this racist story. (Even as Harrison supposedly walks away to embark on an anti-racist journey, he has he continued to make money at Cameo and has continued to appear in episodes already filmed this season.)

It seems like James just hopes his season can precipitate the kind of institutional change that color contestants and spectators have been asking for for years. As he wrote on Instagram, “My highest prayer is that this is a turning point that will lead to institutional and real change for the better.”