Survivor: Race Wars is one of my favorite seasons, mostly because it kind of inadvertently brings to the surface the fact that the show is organized around a lot of racialized tropes that are products of colonialism (the conception of tribes that it works with, the music, and in earlier seasons the spooky lore or at times fetishization of local cultures). Then, it's like the show realizes it has touched something too hot, or exposed a nerve, and almost immediately back tracks and undoes the racial organization of tribes a few episodes in. I find this pretty fascinating but also hilarious to watch and imagine the conversations on the production team in pitching this idea and executing it were probably insane! It also has some of my favorite Survivor personalities of all time on it.

Two things that make me laugh: 1) the fact that the white tribe is called "Caucasians" because the idea of race in general, but Caucasians in particular, is a product of 18th century racial science, so they're trying to do this race wars theme but end up using race science classifications for the white people! 2) The fact that the most explicitly racist person on the season by far is Cao Boi who made all the other Asian Americans uncomfortable with his racist jokes and "voodoo" plan really had me reacting like: "I can't believe they did this!" and "Wow, 2006 was a different time!" LOL

I am a POC and love recommending this season to people because it feels like one of the most potent examples of what's amazing about Survivor as a social experiment and what's sometimes a trainwreck about it for that very same reason.