If Black contestants get a raw deal on The Traitors, that definitely is reality TV | Athena Kugblenu

Has the world gone woke? Some would have you believe it has, but I disagree. We’re not very “woke” if we’re still surprised when Black people are kicked out of reality TV shows first. Some people are now arguing that unconscious racial bias may well be influencing the outcome of The Traitors. But why wouldn’t it? Racial bias influences the outcome of all our lives. I think we are simply watching reality TV reflect reality.

We cannot know what is in people’s heads and it is difficult to ascribe motive, but Judy, who was booted out last week, was described by a fellow contestant as being “angry” and “having her back up” when she was accused of being a traitor. This may have been a criticism specific to her – but it also rings alarm bells. I’ve heard this before. Hands up if you’re a Black woman who has been called surly at work when “assertive” or “confident” would have been more appropriate? There have been countless studies of misogynoir (discrimination that uniquely affects Black women) in the workplace and they all come to the same conclusion. Being a Black woman at work means being judged negatively for behaviour that would be innocuous in another person.

Perhaps these dynamics are more amplified in The Traitors because suspicion is at the heart of the show. There is no doubt that contestants play in good faith. But the words we hear resonate with many Black viewers. If there is one thing that has impacted the experience of Black people in this country, it’s the accusation of acting and looking suspicious; Ross, who was banished as a suspected traitor in episode four after the faithfuls were told it was “obvious” that it must be him, faced something similar. But so have many others in different, more serious settings. Similar reasons were given by police officers who stopped and searched the vehicle of Bianca Williams and Ricardo dos Santos in 2020. A tribunal in 2023 found they were in fact doing nothing out of the ordinary.

What’s interesting is that even though Traitors contestants in this cohort were quick to choose Judy and Ross as suspects, they seem tostruggle to give tangible reasons why. A 2023 Independent Office for Police Conduct report into stop and search, a tactic used when police only have suspicion to go on, reported that every single force stopped and searched minority-ethnic people disproportionately compared with white counterparts. Not one force could explain that either.

If you look for it, inequitable treatment is everywhere. The furore over Diane Abbott drinking a can of M&S mojito on a Transport for London train was equal to the furore over Frank Hester’s racist comments about her. White football players miss penalties all the time – so much so that England’s penalty woes have become etched into legend. But it’s the Black players who receive the most notable, virulent backlash.

Black people are treated differently, and examples of this on reality TV are constant. It was seen when Misha B was accused of bullying on the X Factor way back in 2011, and we’ve observed countless Black women rejected early from Love Island. Black contestants such as Tameka Empson and Melvin Odoom have exited Strictly somewhat prematurely despite dancing as competently as, if not better than, their counterparts – a more puzzling one, since I thought dancing is exactly what’s expected of us.

I wonder if Judy’s mistake on the Traitors was not fitting in with the stereotypical expectations of Black people that some people consciously and unconsciously have (youthful, cool, unambiguously working class, good dancers …). She was initially perceived as “full of life … cracking jokes all the time”, and then punished later for being “withdrawn”. I’ve noticed that this country takes better to people of colour who affirm, not challenge, their stereotypical ideas about us.

Unless reality shows recruit contestants from a time that predates the Barbados Slave Code, which first defined Black people as “less than”, with all the biases and stereotypes that followed, Black and brown contestants will always be vulnerable to assumptions and judgments that negatively impact their chances of success. There is some merit in pontificating about how annoying this is. But we shouldn’t be surprised when our experiences on these shows are consistent with our experiences in real life. The Traitors is filmed in Scotland, not a post-racial paradise.

These reminders of inequitable treatment can feel jarring because Black people in the UK are impactfully represented across the arts, sports, culture and broadcasting. A Black person has read the 10 o’clock news for decades. It doesn’t make any sense that we are a multicultural society that is still distrustful of Black bodies. Our representation is one of the reasons it can be hard to persuade people of the still-rampant racism. A Black woman is the leader of the opposition. We run Mastermind now. Every October we get an all-Black panel on Loose Women. What more could we want?

We may be guilty of letting this representation conceal our everyday experiences. When we are headlining Glastonbury or reading out the evening’s headlines, we are in those positions because of decisions that individuals have made. It is not because of a round of voting or some kind of national democratic process. These reality shows serve only to remind us that if our presence was up for any kind of national debate, it’s an argument we might not win. Good thing it’s not up for debate right now, isn’t it?

• Athena Kugblenu is a comedian and writer

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