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NEW YORK -- You're standing in line at a deli behind two day laborers fumbling with cash and struggling with English, when the clerk begins spewing hatred. Go back to your country, he says, or go eat at Taco Bell.
What would you do?
Stand in uncomfortable silence, hoping simply to leave as quickly as possible? Tell the clerk to shut up? Or join in with the bigotry, kicking the men while they're down?
When ABC News set up that scenario in a New Jersey deli, hiring actors to portray the clerk and laborers and hiding cameras to record the reactions of real people, it found all of those responses -- and more.
The intriguing take on public attitudes toward immigration is featured on Tuesday's episode of What Would You Do?, a news-reality hybrid that's gotten some traction on ABC.
Producer Chris Whipple thought of the idea after wondering if there was a way to do a TV version of The Ethicist column in The New York Times Sunday Magazine. There was an immediate response in the ratings after Primetime carried the first segment in 2004 with an actor portraying a baby-sitter verbally abusing a boy in a park.
ABC carried five What Would You Do? shows last winter, and doubled the order for this year after it was the highest-rated newsmagazine among younger viewers.
"It's the kind of insightful television that makes you think, the water-cooler stuff you talk about the next morning," said John Quinones, who anchors the series. "It's pretty powerful, and a reminder that you're not in this world alone. You have to look out for your fellow human beings."
The deli segment proved emotional; even though he was an actor, one of the men portraying a laborer cried later at the way he was treated.
One black man initially advised the laborers to get out of the deli, at first seemingly in sympathy but then in anger. In an interview after Quinones stepped in, he acknowledged being mad at immigrants taking away jobs. He softened after an hour's thought, realizing he was guilty of the same discrimination that he himself had experienced.
Quinones, who grew up in San Antonio, dressed down and took a few turns himself posing as a Spanish-speaking laborer.
"Even though I knew it was all an act and the guy behind the counter was being paid to say these awful words, the words still stung," he said.
Not all the social experiments are serious. ABC sought people's reactions to loud cell phone users and public displays of affection. A funny upcoming segment features a man in a grocery store who asks to cut in line, then wins a fake big-money prize as the store's millionth customer.
What Would You Do? is also a sign of changing times at broadcast news divisions.
Quinones admitted to some trepidation about the idea at first, but he said it has been erased by how many times he's seen brave people do the right thing.
"How many other newsmagazines are tackling domestic violence, racism, attacks on the homeless, date rape, hazing, shopping while black?" Whipple said.
Following Tuesday's season premiere, ABC has nine more episodes running through March.
