Also, I really didn't want Tori's parchment to say "Safe".

I wish the producers would see that it was another great episode without a ton of gimmicks too.

Watched the whole conversation again, for as goofy as Maryanne can be at times on this season, her comments were pretty powerful there.

Went back and looked, Drea voted for Channel last week.  For whatever that adds to the conversation.

I thought Drea and Maryanne both did a great job of describing their emotions.  They did better than I could have done.  That’s for sure.  It’s hard to explain those feelings that we(black Americans) feel without having someone react and feel the way Johnathan did.  Normally the conversation is over at that point because people stop listening and go into defense mode. Fortunately they kept the conversation going and were all able to continue to express the emotions they felt.    

1 hour ago, MJAlltheWay24 said:

Went back and looked, Drea voted for Channel last week.  For whatever that adds to the conversation.

It doesn’t add much but it is a very complex situation.  It’s one thing to have to vote out one black person. It still usually feels pretty crappy but you see another black person voted out right behind her and you also know for a fact that you and one other black person is on the chopping block then your mind starts racing.  Especially when the second one was blindsided(well executed blindside at that).  Either way, once a black person’s mind starts racing and all they see is the blacks are being voted out…..good luck convincing them(us) that there isn’t some kind of subconscious or conscious racial bias at play.  It is what the experience of being a black American can be for a lot of us.  
 

It’s like I told my wife, there could be absolutely zero racial intention behind the votes but if all we see is the blacks being voted out then we have to mentally put the pieces together to figure out if it was a racist move or not.  That is mentally taxing and it will affect mood and attitude and we can’t escape those feelings.  If we mention how we feel then folks will say we’re blaming our failures on race and then we get labeled as the angry black.  We always have to be aware of what we say and how we say it because once a black person gets a negative perception about themselves then they will never be able to change it regardless of what they do or say.  It’s just the way it is.   

4 minutes ago, PurplePride92 said:

I thought Drea and Maryanne both did a great job of describing their emotions.  They did better than I could have done.  That’s for sure.  It’s hard to explain those feelings that we(black Americans) feel without having someone react and feel the way Johnathan did.  Normally the conversation is over at that point because people stop listening and go into defense mode. Fortunately they kept the conversation going and were all able to continue to express the emotions they felt.    

Especially when you throw in being extremely tired, hungry and miserably wet with the rain.

You could tell that Drea was really thrown off in her own emotions right when she sat down.  Probably extremely torn on her feelings inside vs. playing the game.  She seems pretty calculated and I've been a big fan of her all season and she's played great (minus the red paint blunder, which was funny).  But man, you could tell she genuinely didn't know how to approach her feelings and express her thoughts right at the beginning, which is why she kept saying "I don't know", which people rarely do (or I should say, we rarely get to see). And then decided, let's do this and was able to express her feelings about it.

Maryanne was a little slower to get to that point.  She originally spot like she always does about the game and everything and didn't seem like the race part of it hit her right away, until Drea started speaking more and Maryanne's tone definitely changed in the tribal.  It kind of hurts me, but she's right, that she had to also play her idol in that situation because so many at home will then say, well Maryanne only advanced through that tribal "because of the race card that those two just played".  And there are a lot of idiots out there that are probably still saying it.  Stupid.  It really bums me out that she knows that she has to do that and that she isn't wrong.  Her part of her speech about 1 in 18 but its not an equal 1 in 18 because of baggage/privilege was pretty damn good.

8 minutes ago, PurplePride92 said:

It doesn’t add much but it is a very complex situation.  It’s one thing to have to vote out one black person. It still usually feels pretty crappy but you see another black person voted out right behind her and you also know for a fact that you and one other black person is on the chopping block then your mind starts racing.  Especially when the second one was blindsided(well executed blindside at that).  Either way, once a black person’s mind starts racing and all they see is the blacks are being voted out…..good luck convincing them(us) that there isn’t some kind of subconscious or conscious racial bias at play.  It is what the experience of being a black American can be for a lot of us.  
 

It’s like I told my wife, there could be absolutely zero racial intention behind the votes but if all we see is the blacks being voted out then we have to mentally put the pieces together to figure out if it was a racist move or not.  That is mentally taxing and it will affect mood and attitude and we can’t escape those feelings.  If we mention how we feel then folks will say we’re blaming our failures on race and then we get labeled as the angry black.  We always have to be aware of what we say and how we say it because once a black person gets a negative perception about themselves then they will never be able to change it regardless of what they do or say.  It’s just the way it is.   

I appreciate you posting this because it makes a lot of sense after reading what you wrote and their mentality in that moment.

Let me ask your thoughts on this and I acknowledge, in that moment that it probably doesn't matter to Drea because she is only focusing/reacting on what she see's right and front of her sitting on the jury after that Rocksroy blindside.  But does it make a difference that all four black contestants made it to the merge/jury vs being voted out first, second, third, or any at all before the merge?  Probably doesn't matter to her right then and there, but looking at the whole season, it just made me wonder.

Also, this isn't exactly Survivor related but I notice that you use the term Black American vs. African American.  Is Black American more appropriate for me to use or are both pretty widely accepted?  Honestly haven't been sure lately if it's better to say "Black Person", "African American" or now should I use "Black American"?

19 minutes ago, PurplePride92 said:

It’s like I told my wife, there could be absolutely zero racial intention behind the votes but if all we see is the blacks being voted out then we have to mentally put the pieces together to figure out if it was a racist move or not.  That is mentally taxing and it will affect mood and attitude and we can’t escape those feelings.  If we mention how we feel then folks will say we’re blaming our failures on race and then we get labeled as the angry black.  We always have to be aware of what we say and how we say it because once a black person gets a negative perception about themselves then they will never be able to change it regardless of what they do or say.  It’s just the way it is.   

I know I just said it but then asked some questions, so I wanted to reiterate.  That's some good stuff right there PP92 and I think a lot of other people could really learn a thing or two from what you just said here.

1 hour ago, MJAlltheWay24 said:

Especially when you throw in being extremely tired, hungry and miserably wet with the rain.

You could tell that Drea was really thrown off in her own emotions right when she sat down.  Probably extremely torn on her feelings inside vs. playing the game.  She seems pretty calculated and I've been a big fan of her all season and she's played great (minus the red paint blunder, which was funny).  But man, you could tell she genuinely didn't know how to approach her feelings and express her thoughts right at the beginning, which is why she kept saying "I don't know", which people rarely do (or I should say, we rarely get to see). And then decided, let's do this and was able to express her feelings about it.

Maryanne was a little slower to get to that point.  She originally spot like she always does about the game and everything and didn't seem like the race part of it hit her right away, until Drea started speaking more and Maryanne's tone definitely changed in the tribal.  It kind of hurts me, but she's right, that she had to also play her idol in that situation because so many at home will then say, well Maryanne only advanced through that tribal "because of the race card that those two just played".  And there are a lot of idiots out there that are probably still saying it.  Stupid.  It really bums me out that she knows that she has to do that and that she isn't wrong.  Her part of her speech about 1 in 18 but its not an equal 1 in 18 because of baggage/privilege was pretty damn good.

I thought the same thing. My 'first blush' reaction when Maryanne said she had to play her idol because if she came back safely from tribal then someone would say it was because of her "racial grandstanding" was a little, I guess not so much indignant, but I just felt like, "How in the world would THAT be the case?"

I watch all of the Survivor episodes on DVR, though, so I immediately hit rewind and listened again, and I was nodding my head in agreement after that. There definitely would be idiots who said, "The only reason she didn't get voted out is because of the fact that she 'went on that rant' about how everyone is out to vote the black people off."

Honestly thinking, I don't know that my brain would have ever made it there on my own, but after she said it, I realized that she's right - which is sad, to begin with - but then the fact that her experience forces her mind to realize that so relatively quickly and my experience as a white male, left me feeling so oblivious to that made me sad as well.

Also...total big-cojones move for Drea and Maryanne to both play their idols in that situation. Like period.

2 hours ago, MJAlltheWay24 said:

Also, I really didn't want Tori's parchment to say "Safe".

I wish the producers would see that it was another great episode without a ton of gimmicks too.

Side note...Tori had a slightly unfair advantage with her shot in the dark. In a regular tribal, people don't know the results of the vote before they have to decide whether or not they are going to play their Shot In The Dark.

Tori's Shot In The Dark was actually just a Shot - because she definitely wasn't in the dark about voting.

For the record, I actually like the Shot In The Dark. I don't like the stupid three-way Immunity Idols, though; just make those regular, plain old immunity idols. And I'd like the Knowledge Is Power and the Advantage Amulet both gone too. The Steal A Vote is kind of just whatever, as far as I'm concerned.

1 hour ago, MJAlltheWay24 said:

I appreciate you posting this because it makes a lot of sense after reading what you wrote and their mentality in that moment.

Let me ask your thoughts on this and I acknowledge, in that moment that it probably doesn't matter to Drea because she is only focusing/reacting on what she see's right and front of her sitting on the jury after that Rocksroy blindside.  But does it make a difference that all four black contestants made it to the merge/jury vs being voted out first, second, third, or any at all before the merge?  Probably doesn't matter to her right then and there, but looking at the whole season, it just made me wonder.

Also, this isn't exactly Survivor related but I notice that you use the term Black American vs. African American.  Is Black American more appropriate for me to use or are both pretty widely accepted?  Honestly haven't been sure lately if it's better to say "Black Person", "African American" or now should I use "Black American"?

In the moment I don’t think it matters much to her but at the end of the season looking back I think she will appreciate that they all made it to the merge.  That is still an accomplishment IMO.   
 

They are both wildly accepted but I have never liked using the term African-American for black people who were born in America.  Technically Elon Musk is more African American than I am so I won’t call myself African American.  It bothered me when I was younger when people used the African American term but now that I am older it doesn’t bother me as much.  I prefer using and being called Black.  
 

African American is probably the better term to use.  It is more socially acceptable to use that term instead of Black American.  At the same time I don’t know of anyone who would get publicly angry about being called Black.  

17 minutes ago, PurplePride92 said:

In the moment I don’t think it matters much to her but at the end of the season looking back I think she will appreciate that they all made it to the merge.  That is still an accomplishment IMO.

They are both wildly accepted but I have never liked using the term African-American for black people who were born in America.  Technically Elon Musk is more African American than I am so I won’t call myself African American.  It bothered me when I was younger when people used the African American term but now that I am older it doesn’t bother me as much.  I prefer using and being called Black.  

I just had some deja vu from a conversation I had with one of my buddies from college as I read that. Whembolua (Willie) was from the Republic of the Congo and was going to college in the US before heading back to Congo. He said he was super frustrated when he's called an African American because he isn't American. "I'm black, and people have a problem calling me black."

He also pointed out the number of people who are white who are native to South Africa, and how most of the population of Egypt has closer genetic ties and appearances to being Middle Eastern/Arab/Persian than they do to being black.

Quite frankly, I use the term "black" largely on the basis of my conversation with Willie and from interacting with you on here PP92...there are still occasions where African American comes out, most frequently when I'm talking with someone else who's saying African American, and ALWAYS if they are African American and are using that term. I'll readily admit, it's something that's hard for me as a white guy to always feel confident knowing what to say where and when.

7 hours ago, MJAlltheWay24 said:

Went back and looked, Drea voted for Channel last week.  For whatever that adds to the conversation.

Also Drea and Maryanne were planning on voting for each other I believe so there’s that too...

15 hours ago, AirYardGo said:

Also Drea and Maryanne were planning on voting for each other I believe so there’s that too...

Keep in mind that Drea wasn’t triggered until she saw Rocksroy sitting in the jury. She kept saying “I don’t know” to Jeff’s questions because she was still trying to process the situation. Up until that moment she was simply playing the game until she felt like the game was starting to imitate life for her.  
 

I also believe that Drea was playing her idol no matter what.  Jonathan planted that red flag when he said he wanted to vote out Maryanne to flush out her idol.   I don’t know what Maryanne was going to do with her idol initially but once Drea began to speak her truth then Maryanne felt morally compelled to join her and played her idol as well.  It was the right thing to do for both of them in my opinion.