WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT THE END OF THE MATT JAMES SEASON OF “THE BACHELOR”.
In a powerful statement posted on his Instagram account on Monday night, Bachelor Matt James stated unequivocally that “The Bachelor franchise fell short” when it comes to dealing with race. After presenter Chris Harrison defended a competitor who had a worrying history of racist behavior in “Extra”, James said the current reckoning moment for the franchise “also prompted me to reevaluate and process what my experience in The Bachelor represents.”
James and competitor Rachael Kirkconnell ended up together at the end of the season, with the 24-year-old graphic designer receiving the final rose at the end yet to air, as Reality Steve reported on January 21. HuffPost has since learned that James and Kirkconnell are no longer together and that their separation was precipitated by recent revelations that she had attended a formal pre-war themed fraternity ball in 2018 and liked photos with images of Confederate flags in the past.
James’ statement is what he most publicly expressed about the franchise’s relationship to the breed since he was cast as the first black bachelor in June, following protests across the country against police brutality and racism. (“It’s an honor,” James told “Good Morning America” at the time. “I’m just going to focus on how my mom raised me, and I hope that when people invite me to their homes on Monday night, they will see that I am not very different from them and they will see that the different love stories are beautiful. ”)
It is also a highly unusual step for a franchise leader to publicly criticize the program before its season ends.
But in the wake of host Chris Harrison “temporarily moving away” from the franchise after going on a 15 minutes rant about “police awake” for the first black single, Rachel Lindsay, in “Extra”, the stakes have increased. As James wrote in his statement, he felt compelled to “address the worrying information that has surfaced since we ended 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 the black women had to take the extra responsibility of helping ‘The Bachelor’ to deal with diversity issues and were frequently exploited, ”a source close to James told HuffPost. “The executives at ‘The Bachelor’ failed to realize that scaling a diverse set of competitors is not the same thing as creating a level playing field and opportunity. If they want to change, that means changing behind and in front of the camera. “
James drew the ire 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 he was also put in a painful position because his journey as the first black bachelor was overshadowed by the controversy over the racist actions of the woman he chose as the winner and longtime host of the show.
James cannot bear the burden of the franchise’s ills or the burden of saving it. “The Bachelor” had a strained relationship with race – and particularly Blackness – long before James’ season, and a more diverse cast does not address the racism embedded in the show’s structures and the entertainment industry as a whole.
James is not even the first black leader to be placed in the position of dating a white competitor with a history of racist social media views and behavior. In 2017, Lindsay’s suitors included Lee Garrett, whose tweets comparing NAACP to the KKK and calling Black Lives Matter a “terrorist group” (among many other racist, Islamophobic, homophobic and misogynistic posts) emerged as the season aired. Lindsay publicly stated that she felt like she was framed as the “angry black woman” in her season. This month, she said that after fulfilling her contractual obligations to “The Bachelor”, she will end the franchise.
The executives at ‘The Bachelor’ failed to realize that scaling a diverse set of competitors is not the same as creating a level playing field. If they want to change, that means changing behind and in front of the camera.
A source close to Matt James
Other black competitors reported similar experiences tokenization, exploitation and racist reaction that some say the show failed to prepare or support them. Both Kupah James, contestant for Kaitlyn Bristowe’s “The Bachelorette” season, and Taylor Nolan, contestant for Nick Viall’s “The Bachelor” season, who is now a big proponent of racial equality in the franchise, told HuffPost during the summer, they felt that they had been framed as “aggressive” villains and therefore prepared to receive a massive reaction. LaNease Adams, a black woman cast for the first season of “The Bachelor”, he remembered finding his photograph on a white supremacist website and after experiencing mental health problems. AND Jason Mesnick, the first and only Jewish bachelor, told HuffPost last year that the program had downplayed his Judaism, including discouraging him from breaking a glass at his 2010 wedding to his now wife Molly
In 2012, two black men led a class action for racial discrimination against the franchise, which was eventually rejected on the basis of the First Amendment. However, after the process, starting with Sean Lowe’s “The Bachelor” season, the casts became noticeably more diverse. But black contestants rarely make it to the coveted four finalists on the show, and even when they do, they often don’t get the same screen time and positive attention as their white counterparts.
Pieper James, one of the black women in James’s season, tweeted on February 11 that “Black women in this franchise should always be super conscious of our ‘grace’, because no one is extending it to us. ” Is it over there added later that she was “waiting to hear the systematic changes that the franchise will be evoking to combat the tokenization of BIPOC individuals. “
Until the last two weeks, no one on the “The Bachelor” executive team has faced even the slightest consequences for this racist story. (Even while Harrison is supposedly moving away to go on an anti-racist journey, he continued to make money on Cameo and continued to appear in the episodes already filmed this season.)
James, it seems, just hopes his season can precipitate the kind of institutional change that black competitors and viewers have been calling for years. As he wrote on Instagram: “My greatest prayer is that this will be a turning point that will result in real and institutional change for the better.”
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