The Bachelor's Racism Problem

Tall, attractive, and searching for a wife. When it comes to casting for The Bachelor, Matt James checked all the boxes. It almost made up for the fact that he wasn’t white.

After years of push from viewership, The Bachelor’s production team has finally started making efforts to address the longstanding diversity and inclusion issues that have plagued the franchise. They have made demonstrated efforts to diversify the contestants fighting for love and even welcomed three Black leads: Rachel Lindsay in 2017, Tayshia Adams in 2020, and most recently, Matt James. But casting diversity just to check a box is not enough. The Bachelor has been running since 2002, and we only recently started casting BIPOC leads and contestants. In order to stand in accordance with their purported commitment to diversity and inclusion, the production team needs to make the Bachelor mansion a safer space for BIPOC.

ABC network advertised Rachel Lindsay’s season of The Bachelorette as a groundbreaking move for the franchise as a whole, yet cast Lee Garrett, a contestant with a history of white supremacy. And to make matters worse, the majority of contestant Garrett’s airtime referenced a “feud” that was taking place between him and fellow Black contestant Kenny King. Garrett called King aggressive, which only fed into existing harmful stereotypes of Black men. Looking back, Lindsay can’t help but think that he was cast to add drama and controversy to her season.

Matt James’ season was once again advertised as a step in the right direction, but early into the season, racism allegations were made against the now-winner, Rachael Kirkconnell. Kirkconnell was seen at an Old South Antebellum party during her college years and was known to bully others for liking Black men. In addition to that, Matt James felt like he had to work extra hard to make sure that viewers were comfortable with his racial identity. Unlike his white counterparts, his job as the Bachelor was not solely to find love. James’s cast was publicized as the “most diverse” yet, but performativity can’t protect from existing systemic racism.

As viewers, we’ve been exposed to three seasons with Black leads, the last of which was the most controversial and ultimately led to Chris Harrison stepping down as show host. Harrison resigned after suggesting in an interview with Rachel Lindsay that an Antebellum party was only problematic because of today’s social culture. But look at what Harrison first said when he decided to step down. He said it was temporary. Harrison’s decision to permanently step away from the Bachelor franchise was made official around the premiere of Katie Thurston’s season of The Bachelorette. It came after past contestants stepped forward stating that they did not want him involved in upcoming seasons. So what was his intention with stepping away in the first place? Was it truly a commitment to doing antiracism work, or was it a publicity stunt? It’s impossible to know.

Kaitlyn Bristowe and Tayshia Adams will be hosting the current season of the Bachelorette, but simply putting a new face to the show will not change the fact that The Bachelor has failed to create an environment where their Black contestants can truly find love. And this problem is twofold: production consistently fails to adequately vet contestants, and then they prioritize drama over romance, even if the drama they air is racially-tinged. It’s an issue of ignorance.

Recent seasons have promised change, but production’s background checks continually miss details like indecent assault charges and sexist and racist Tweets. If it were up to me, these contestants would never have been invited to participate on the show in the first place. Everyone deserves to find love, but why are we giving this opportunity to individuals that use their social media platforms to promote hate speech? To make matters worse, participation on the show is also generally a fast pass to ‘celebrity’ status. Why are we giving these people the spotlight? With thousands of applicants for each season, surely the production team can find a replacement that doesn’t promote hate on their social media.

In addition to consistently missing crucial details in background checks, the production teams do not have the means to understand how race impacts relationships or public perception. In addition to consistently giving excessive airtime to manufactured ‘feuds’ between Black and White contestants, the production team failed to cast men that like Black women.

“I learned as I was going through my season that several of the Black men on my season didn't date Black women,” Lindsay said in an interview with Ziwe Fumudoh.

When Lindsay brought this up with the producers, their only response was that it was ‘interesting’.

Looking back, all Lindsay has to say to the producers is the following: “You think that's interesting. That's my life. I live that."

The Bachelor franchise’s purported interest in change needs to extend to the production team. There are currently limited statistics on the demographics of this team, but evidence shows that they have not yet succeeded in creating a space that can accommodate BIPOC contestants and leads. The franchise stamped Lindsay’s season as the ‘most diverse ever’ because the cast was less whitewashed than usual, but look at what happened. The team wasn’t equipped to handle a change in the typical racial identity of their lead.

The premise of The Bachelor is to help people find love. With recent movements to better accommodate BIPOC, the show has diversified its cast, but it needs to adequately vet its potential contestants and make sure that its production team can support BIPOC contestants and leads. What they also need to do is make room for conversations about race. This runs the risk of being performative, but brushing the challenges of interracial relationships under the rug demonstrates the same ignorance that has plagued the franchise for the past two decades.

I’ve been a fan of this series for years now, and it is a confusing spot to be in. For a long while, the show was uniquely immune to cancel culture. The escapism that accompanies watching a two-hour episode after a tiring Monday keeps the majority of us coming back, willing to delay the important conversations that need to be had. But enough is enough. Dominantly White viewership and escapism are not reasons enough to ignore the franchise’s current standing race issues.

Chris Harrison has been officially ousted as the face of the franchise, but don’t equate a change in face with a change in the whole team’s mindset. Producers have the power to make or break a season, depending on the content they choose to release and the manner in which they choose to portray it. So in order for the Bachelor franchise to make any progress, producers need a refresher on what it means to be anti-racist, and they must be more conscientious about who they cast and how they divide airtime amongst contestants.

By Anita Mukherjee

Indie rock enthusiast and home chef who will always make time to watch a stand-up special