Is Big Brother racist?

Is Big Brother racist? Faria Alam says so. Everyone’s favourite contrarian says her claim is obvious. Everyone’s least favourite cat disagrees:

Oily MP George Galloway rounded on Faria, saying: "The idea that people who watch this show are bigots is preposterous. Most of the people who've won have been from minorities of one kind or another."

We can use statistics here. Excluding people who walked out, and using my judgment of ethnicity, the contestants on ordinary BB break down as follows:

BB1. 11 contestants, 2 black/Asian.

BB2. 11, 3,

BB3. 12, 3.

BB4. 13, 3.

BB5. 13, 2.

BB6. 16, 5.

Now, if there’s no prejudice of any kind, every contestant would have an equal chance of winning. But in fact every winner has been white.

The probability that this could happen by chance in a non-racist contest is simply the product of the probabilities of a white winner in each series. That is, 9/11 x 8/11 x 9/12 etc. This comes to 20%, 4 to 1.

This, I guess, is sufficiently low that it won’t shake Faria’s Bayesian prior that there is racism in BB.

Her opponents will reply that 4 to 1 shots do come in. 20% is well above the significance levels usually required to accept a hypothesis in classical statistics.

The issue, then, is not merely: are people racist? It’s: what form of statistical reasoning do we use?

But here’s a simple test. If we assume that one-quarter of future housemates will be black or Asian, then there’s a less than 5% chance that the winners of the first eleven series will all be white.

So, if we haven’t gotten a black or Asian winner in five years’ time, Faria’s theory will be looking good by the standards of conventional statistics.

Personally speaking, for the time being, I’m prepared to go with Faria. Lots of other bald men have.

Comments

[chris]

OMG, do there have to be eleven series of this shite?

[CB]

What about gays? I count two winners of the series who have been LGBT (Brian Dowling + Nadia), surely that's significant? There have been very few gay people in there who are also black (derek from BB6 is the only one who springs to mind). Therefore, if there is a preponderance towards LGBT winners, surely the lack of coloured contestants who are also gay might go some way to explaining it.

[Backword Dave]

There is also a very pronounced bias toward men winning. (I *think* this is because women do most of the voting.) Since Chris can remember the ethnic mixes of the contestants, perhaps he can also factor in gender.

I think Faria is wrong, however. But I'm not bald. ;)

On this subject (sort of), winners in previous CBBs have been Jack Dee, Mark Owen from Take That, and Bez. All men note, and their nearest equivalents in the present house are (in order) Michael Barrymore, Preston, and Maggot. I think anyone who bets on a winner other than those three is throwing away money.

[Patrick Crozier]

OK, so the results might be racist but that doesn't prove the producers are. It could just as well be that the likely-to-do-well-on-BB gene is not evenly distributed amongst the races. Or maybe there are cultural factors.

Or maybe the racism is on the audience side of the eviction equation.

[Andrew]

It would be more interesting to study at which point in the contest minorities were voted out, so you examine not just winning, but also getting far in the competition. You'd have to adjust for the nomination process somehow, which doesn't always deliver up who the public want to get rid of, although it would be interesting in itself to study racism in the nominations process itself.

Also, you'd want to adjust for the reasons people are voted out. You often find that people are voted out because they implode and do something stupid. I'd exclude these people from the stats, or at least diminish their significance.

[Andrew]

Multiple 'itselfs' there... Excuse me.

[John East]

There is a possible flaw in your argument. The statistical analysis presented assumes that all contestants are identical in all respects except colour, or to put it another way, that colour is the only determining variable.
In fact there are potentially other variables in play other than colour. One that springs to mind is racial stereotyping of the producer who selected the housemates. For example, in the current series of CBB we have the rough, gruff black athlete Dennis who was brought up in the ghetto, and the beautiful innocent white dumb blonde Chantelle who everybody seems to love. I suspect that Chantelle will triumph over Dennis, not because of colour, but because the one stereotype is more likely to appeal to the target audience more than the other. Substitute Kelly Holmes for Dennis Rodman and the outcome could be different.

I would like to make one further point extracted from my take of the whole episode on my blog:

”The reaction of the “great champion of the oppressed” house inmate MP George Galloway, was particularly funny. In his anger and rage at his predicament he blurted out this classic statement concerning Dennis Rodman, one of the Afro-American house inmates, “He is rude, and aggressive. If he was white and not black none of us would tolerate his behaviour.” By this statement George Galloway is proudly declaring his racism by telling us that we should treat people in different ways depending on the colour of their skin."

[Unity]

Chris - you're forgetting gambler's fallacy here aren't you?

Your calculation of the odds of a non-white winner assumes memory which may not, and probably isn't, present.

[Curious]

Hi Chris,

Why did you bother with this exactly?

Everything from what George Galloway said in response to the original remarks, to what was actually said hold elements of truth and untruths.

Lest we forget, the representative heuristic is responsible for even the most embedded prejudicial views (any race against another).

You've written about this in the past and so have I.

By the way, I really have no regard for the mirror as a useful source of anything meaningful.

[baz]

Yes BB is racist , There has never been anyone from an oriental background on the show EVER.

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