ELLEN GRAY | Opinion Race becomes an issue on reality TV

I used to think one of the worst things about "reality" TV was how it dealt with race.
Now I'm wondering if it's not the best.
Not because a black couple won CBS' "The Amazing Race" last week, but because of how Subway franchisee Stacie Jones Upchurch got the boot on NBC's "The Apprentice" two days later.
Unlike most scripted shows, which either avoid race issues altogether or paper over them with PC platitudes, shows such as "The Apprentice" and "Survivor" offer a glimpse of the subtle and not-so-subtle obstacles people of color still face in predominantly white environments. It's not a pretty picture, but it can be educational.
Upchurch -- or "Stacie J.," as she's known, to distinguish her from contestant Stacy Rotne -- wasn't done in by Donald Trump so much as by her teammates, one of whom described her to Trump as "borderline schizophrenic."
This after a Trump-assigned task in which two other women clearly screwed up big time.
We'll probably never know whether Stacie J. is actually a head case or just a slightly offbeat character who was cast in hopes she'd develop into another Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, whose over-the-top fulfillment of "reality" TV's Angry Black Person quota helped drive ratings in the show's first year.
Disproportionate reaction
What interests me, though, is for once not the casting, but the way Stacie J. was almost instantly isolated from her teammates, and how out of proportion their reaction to her one true bout of flakiness appears to have been.
I mean, if playing with a Magic 8-ball were a sign of mental illness, would Mattel just leave them lying around on desks like that?
In a conference call last week, Trump aide Carolyn Kepcher said Stacie was perhaps "feeling the pressure the first episode or two," and defended her casting.
Which suggests Carolyn, at least, doesn't think she's really crazy.
Even before the 8-ball incident, however, Stacie J. was portrayed as out of step with her companions, and it's hard not to see race in some of that, particularly when you look at what's been happening on the men's team of "Survivor: Vanuatu," where Rory Freeman, the show's only black, has repeatedly been singled out for behavior that seems no more aberrant than anyone else's.
In a competitive environment -- "Survivor" contestants are vying for a $1 million prize, would-be "Apprentices" for a $250,000-a-year job -- these people are already aligning themselves by age, sex -- though that's on the producers -- and, yes, by race.
And if that's the way people behave when cameras are rolling, just imagine what goes on in all the places no one's filming.
XGray writes for Philadelphia Daily News.