He explained that he’s “used to” fans being “awful” to him about speaking up.
“These past few weeks I’ve been told to shut up more than I can count,” he said. “These fans are playing into exactly what I’m saying, though. They don’t like a minority voice speaking up and exposing the many problems with diversity on a show they love. I’m told that the only reason I’m speaking up is because I’m upset I haven’t been asked back, which is so wrong. I’m speaking up because we are in a time when people are actually listening to minority voices, and I hope CBS listens and makes some changes.”
In late 2019, CBS programming chiefs came under fire by the Television Critics Association for “mismanaging inclusivity on the network’s reality programs like Big Brother and Survivor,” reported Deadline at the time.
At the time, a press member called out an incident having to do with Kemi, a Black woman on Big Brother, who in the wake of being eliminated from the show claimed that the series producers “tried to goad her into playing the part of a sassy black woman” along with Survivor contestant Julia Carter‘s 4,6000-word essay that detailed her experience during Season 38, which entailed a racial slur being used on the first day.
Of the incidents aforementioned, CBS entertainment president Kelly Kahl said, “A producer, we learned, in an attempt to get a soundbite, overstepped. That producer was reprimanded and received unconscious bias training, as well as other producers on the show [did]. We don’t want that to happen again.”
Additionally, Senior Executive Vice President of Programming at CBS entertainment, Thom Sherman, said, “all of our producers receive unconscious bias training […] We can’t show everything that happens on the show, and producers strive to show a good representation of what happens.”
