For the last week or so I had seen the promos for the new ABC reality series, "What would you do?"
The concept was one that intrigued me given my long time fascination with the moral dilemmas of life. In fact it is just these types of dilemmas that my radio show covers weekly, in our attempt to encourage those who listen to 'Xtreme' Radio to hopefully act with more clarity in the situations they face in life.
So after the season premiere of the ABC version of SCRUBS, I decided to stick around for the season premiere of "What would you do?"
Which should have been titled, "Why does America suck so much?"
John Quinones, this week's host, picked two subject matters for tonight's show. Response to how a deli in Linden, New Jersey treats two vocally belligerent illegal aliens who are being denied service, and what "Ugly Americans" look like in Paris.
In
the New Jersey scenario the belligerent illegals, and the waiter behind the counter saying horrifically mean spirited things to them were all actors, the gig was to see how others reacted.
For the most part, most didn't react.
One African American, who finally does react, repeatedly encourages the illegals to "leave and go somewhere else" to get their breakfast sandwich and coffee. At one point the African American male is then busted and run through the wringer for saying what he said.
The white wash that was made in the piece however was infuriating.
While one or two Americans out of a hundred might believe that illegal aliens shouldn't get service in a deli, nearly 80% of Americans out of that same hundred would believe that illegals should not come here illegally. In addition they also hold that we as a nation should do more to encourage a legal immigration policy across the board.
At one point Quinones makes the inference that he was once a migrant worker and had received poor treatment. The red flag in my mind was that Quinones in his "gotcha" moments kept trying to make it seem that the American public confuses LEGAL immigrants, and migrant workers, with illegal immigrants.
The ABC News cameras even shot B-roll footage of a street corner in Linden where at least 40-50 illegals gathered that day to find work in the morning.
Americans DON'T confuse the issue of those who have come to this country out of a love for it and a desire to become AMERICAN vs. those who skirt the laws, slip across the borders, smuggle people, drugs, and other contraband in (and also pose a threat to our national security.)
John Quinones owes the American public an apology for using his platform to paint Americans as xenophobic. It was a lie from the pit, and he should know better.
His second topic was to
take two "rednecks" and plop them down in Paris as the two most overly stereotypical figures ever conceived. The entire exercise was meant to poke fingers in the eyes of Americans for not being more cosmopolitan and French in their behaviors.
While this excruciatingly hate-America tripe was running, what was merely brushed over was that as the secret cameras rolled in MANY instances it was actually fellow American tourists who would correct Tweedle Dee and Dum in their Parisian exploits.
If John Quinones is actually interested in watching human behavior undergo the temptation of moral dilemmas, let's hope he chooses honest situations, with actual practical application to human behavior in the future. However seeing how he delighted in producing pieces tonight that even again compared "Bush" to "Hitler" he just lost what little journalism credibility he had.
Put another way:
M. Quinones lui-meme est une honte pour la pratique du journalisme et devrait etre retrograde au role de substitution dans les jours a venir.