BlinkVib

The "angry" young black man or the stripper? Pleeezzzz, pleeezzzz, pleeezzzz. Was there any doubt what would happen on Thursday's episode of "Big Brother," when CBS revealed the first inmate to be banished from its "Survivor" sibling?

CBS's clumsy foray into a frank exploration of America's racial terrain ended abruptly when William Collins (a k a Mega; a k a Hiram Ashantee, former field marshal for the New Black Panther Party; a k a the really, really outspoken guy) became the first of 10 contestants to be booted from the pseudo-reality show with the fabricated studio-set "house."

It seems America--or at least that small, inexplicable segment that actually cares enough to participate in the "Big Brother" experience--has little tolerance for an African American man whose idea of household entertainment is pushing 25-year-old fuchsia-haired housemate Brittany to tears by accusing her of having token black friends. Or telling Cassandra, his only fellow black cast mate, that his goal was to make others "face their fears."

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"This can be seen as a metaphor for the majority's discomfort with strong and self-confident black men," says American University Prof. Leonard Steinhorn, a casual "Big Brother" watcher who has co-authored the book "By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race."

"I have to admit that I'm not really privy to the dynamics that went on inside the house," says Steinhorn, whose total viewing hours have been limited by what he describes as the show's incredibly irritating setup. "But [William] seems incredibly honest, and he seems very willing to shoot like a laser beam onto what the core issues are."

Okay, that certainly was true. But let's not forget that Collins had a lot of little character traits that would have been annoying no matter what.

He picked fights and cursed up a storm and was inordinately proud of himself for sabotaging an on-air competition that cost the housemates $70 in grocery money. No matter how many times he flirted with the ladies, he wasn't going to win any Mr. Congeniality awards.

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Stir in the race factor and you get his fellow cast mates nominating him--along with female cast member Jordan--as the candidate to be dumped. Viewers made the final call, making their selections by telephone.

How many actually called? Who knows? CBS wasn't giving up those numbers yesterday. But, oh, the network played out the episode with as much manufactured drama as possible. Who would be the first to go? Collins? Or Jordan, the ex-stripper with the catty attitude? Apparently, cattiness in a cute package is not so intolerable after all. Not only was Jordan spared the ax by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, but in a poll that asked viewers which cast mate they'd most like to date, she finished second only to Josh, a cute 23-year-old college student. On an earlier episode, Collins commented that Jordan should be one of the last to go because he needed "something beautiful to look at." Seems he's not the only one who feels that way.

Collins is no slouch himself. (If there is any justice in the world, he'll pull a Darva--as in Darva Conger, our onetime Multi-Millionaire Bride--and parlay his 15 minutes into a centerfold for Playgirl.) And his on-air confrontations were matched nearly one for one by his on-air flirtations. They earned him the ire of Khallid Abdul Muhammad, head of the New Black Panther Party. Remember him? He's the guy Louis Farrakhan kicked out of the Nation of Islam for being extreme. In a Thursday afternoon news conference in Philadelphia, Muhammad not only confirmed that Collins was, indeed, former party member Hiram Ashantee, but went on to attack Ashantee for "fondling a white woman" on the show. (No surprise here. Said "white woman" was . . . Jordan!)

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"He's got some explaining to do to his black sisters," said Muhammad, who went on to say that "the white woman is the Devil."

Collins's party affiliation was not known by house members--or most of the viewing audience--until CBS host Julie Chen (taking a massive step down from her usual role on CBS's "Early Show") confronted him with a clip from the New York Daily News at the end of Thursday's show. The whole thing felt more like Chinese water torture than entertainment. And what was all that inane prattle with family members and pseudo-psychological experts?

Despite CBS's hype, the show pulled in only 11.3 million viewers, up a whopping 3 percent from the previous week's episode, but barely more than half of those who had viewed the premiere (which coat-tailed the wildly popular "Survivor"). Of course, "Big Brother" did go head-to-head with NBC's "Friends"--you know, that show with all the cute white people.

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Steinhorn says he knew our man Collins was a goner from the start.

"If he has called people on some of their hypocrisy or pulled the curtain from our collective Wizard of Oz on race, then he truly was the iceman cometh in the living room," he says. "Better to get him off than confront some of the tough issues."

Finding viewers who agreed--or disagreed--with that wasn't easy yesterday.

Check 7-Eleven. Anybody watch "Big Brother"? Uh, nope. Barnes & Noble? Nope. (And, no, we were not searching solely in the "literature" section.) Then Georgetown Park, at lunchtime. Aha! A few straggling "Big Brother" viewers. There's Lisa Deane, an African American, whose response to "Why William?" was simple: "He's a brother."

Susan Richards insisted it was something else. "He's just plain annoying," says the 26-year-old white office assistant who didn't bother to vote but believed Collins's decision to sabotage the team competition was the chief reason he was banished.

"Maybe he made people uncomfortable, but it was just as much because he was always getting into fights and not really acting like he wanted to get to know anybody in the house."

And now he's gone. Sadly for CBS, the most interesting person on "Big Brother" just got exiled to the morning talk show circuit. Woe to the network if the stripper gets sent home next.

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