After a colorful controversy involving a hypothetical green Raven Baxter, Raven-Symoné is setting the record straight about her comments on the beloved Disney Channel character’s Blackness.
During a Tea Time podcast sit-down with her former co-star Kyle Massey and her wife, Miranda Maday, the actress revisited the backlash surrounding an earlier episode, explaining that her comments about the beloved series were intended to highlight its universal appeal, not diminish its cultural significance.
As previously reported, Raven was put through the wringer after a clip from an April episode of Tea Time resurfaced, showing Raven-Symoné questioning comedian Kalen Allen’s characterization of Raven Baxter as Black.
Allen praised the cultural significance of That’s So Raven, particularly the opportunity for Black viewers to see a family that reflected their own experiences on Disney Channel, and described Raven Baxter as “f—ing Black.”
That prompted Raven-Symoné to question why he associated the character so strongly with her racial identity.
“Was she Black? Why did she feel Black to you?” she asked.
Allen explained that seeing a Black family on Disney Channel had been particularly meaningful to him, but Raven-Symoné challenged whether the show’s characters and storylines were inherently tied to race.
“So you saw color. Take away the color. Make them green, and hear the words. What color are they?” she asked.
Now fresh off her hypothetical green era, Raven-Symoné says her intended message was lost as the clip circulated online.
“You took a clip. You took a clip, and you grew it,” she said, addressing the internet as a whole, vefore asking Massey whether he understood what she had been trying to say.
Massey responded bluntly that audiences had not understood her point, although he acknowledged that he recognized what she was attempting to communicate.
“When bro was trying to tell you, like, ‘Oh, you were the Blackest,’ that was a compliment,” Massey told her.
“And I took it as a compliment,” said the actress.
Massey, however, suggested that her response during the original conversation hadn’t conveyed that appreciation to viewers, and noted that Kalen Allen acknowledged how meaningful it had been to see Raven Baxter’s identity represented on television.
“Your Blackness empowered his Blackness,” Massey said.
The actor suggested that Raven-Symoné’s questions could easily be interpreted as discrediting that representation, even if that wasn’t her intention.
Raven-Symoné countered that she has never denied the racial identity of the Baxter family or the significance of portraying a Black teenager on Disney Channel.
“That’s So Raven was a Black family on Disney Channel, doing things,” she said. “I stand on the pillar that I was the first Black female to have a show with her name in the title.”
“I’ve said that my entire life. I didn’t say I was the first green female to have a name in the title,” she continued, referencing her earlier hypothetical about the characters being green.
“I know that we were Black. I get it, you know what I mean?”
The actress explained that her original remarks were intended to encourage viewers to consider how a culturally specific television series could also tell stories that resonated across racial and geographic boundaries.
“This is a podcast about thinking and outward thinking and having conversations and thinking outside of the box,” she said.
“I really did want to start a conversation of just that was a universal show. You had girls from every country watching a Black family, but they saw themselves in that family, which means we were universal.”
Miranda also weighed in, suggesting that Raven-Symoné’s physical comedy was an important part of the sitcom’s cross-cultural appeal.
“The other thing that I thought when this whole conversation was happening was that Raven is such an incredible physical comedian,” she said.
“I think that one of the reasons that the show transcends is because we understand humans, just get body language, right?”
She added that the show’s physical humor helped communicate its comedy beyond language and cultural differences.
“People saw you guys in physical, funny moments, and laughter transcends. We all get [it],” Miranda said, before jokingly adding;
“The green people deserve representation, too.”
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