“Welcome to the Neighborhood� is a new reality TV program on ABC:

Seven
families arrive at the dream home – a 3300-square-foot house with four
bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms located on a prime piece of real
estate in a cul-de-sac near Austin, Texas. The competing families, each
in their own unique way, enthusiastically meet and greet the three
opinionated resident families who have a vested interest in who’ll move
into the house.

Madhu points out
that all the homeowners are white and “they will be choosing from a
host of minorities, including one gay couple. There is just one white
family in the whole batch, and I’m thinking they’re the “tatooed� ones;
you know- the ones that don’t fit the good middle-class white family
description.� She also pastes in a NY Post story on the series into her
post about a brewing controversy:

“The show
perpetuates the problems of housing discrimination, segregation and
racism in America, and it undermines the fair-housing rights of a
person’s ability to go buy a house without any approval or judgment
from a neighbor,� says Shanna Smith, president of the Washington-based
National Fair Housing Alliance. She hasn’t seen the show yet, but is
basing her conclusions mainly on reading ABC’s press materials
promoting the show. She is already talking about launching an
advertiser boycott.

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