How Shamiqua Stole America

A handsome, rich, british man waits patiently outside a million dollar mansion as a horse-drawn carriage pulls up the driveway. A young brunette in a floor-length sparkling gown makes her way down the driveway and pulls out a violin and begins serenading the man. She finishes her piece to introduce herself to this handsome man. Face to face she says, "Hi, I'm Shamiqua”(UnReal). Suddenly, the producer shouts, "Cut! Cut! Cut!”(UnReal). Irritated, the producer lectures Shamiqua about her lack of "wife potential." However, the producer’s actual problem with the scene was that Shamiqua is black. This is the first scene from the new lifetime show UnReal, based on the reality tv show The Bachelor. The Bachelor started as a show where one man got …show more content…
Rachel is a Texas attorney who stole America's heart during Nick Viall's season of the Bachelor. After making it to the final four Nick sent her packing. Weeks later Mike Fleiss, producer of the Bachelor shows, came to Rachel begging her to hold the main title as the Bachelorette. Lucky for us, she accepted. Although The Bachelor franchise has long endured criticism of its lack of diverse casting, especially among the leads(Wagmeister), this is historic in the idea that she is the first african american lead for the show but also like Nick Viall “asked for people of all races”(Lindsay) in her season. Although this is one big step, the bachelor franchise has a long way to go to gain full equality. As the first-ever African-American woman to lead a broadcast network Channing Dungey says “I would very much like to see some changes there. I think one of the big changes that we need to do is increase the pool [of contestants] in the beginning”. I believe that the Bachelor franchise must make an environment where people of all different colors can come and feel comfortable enough and feel as if they have people surrounding them that are like them. This means that the bachelor franchise has to cast more people of color this season because eight is just not enough. Casting more people of color gives more …show more content…
Imagine how many african american women and children’s beliefs about themselves and their future in seeking affection from a significant other would be boosted. We need to start to move away from our past beliefs of what marriage should be and move into a more modern mindset of interracial marriage. If we don’t keep moving forward African American women are going to get the wrong impression and believe they don’t have a chance when they should. People may believe that adding more diverse cast will lose ratings, but they simply don’t know that that is going to happen and we need to take chances but attempting to make a change and failing is better than not trying at