# Was it racist for Zack and Trini to be the Black and Yellow Power Rangers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 11, 2016, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077 "2016-06-11T02:13:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nadnerb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@Nadnerb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nadnerb)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/1 "2016-06-11T02:13:38Z")
I didn’t think so. Because a) we did get another black Black Ranger, which was Will in Operation Overdrive, b) Walter Jones the actor who played Zack said it wasn’t, and c) it wouldn’t hurt to have another Asian Yellow Ranger. What I thought was more racist is that Ashley (Power Rangers Turbo, Power Rangers in Space) and Gia (Megaforce/Super Megaforce, worst season of PR by the way), were originally going to Pink Rangers but became Yellow instead because Asian female came on board. Anyway I would like your input. ---
**Author:** ![Driver8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5a626/32.png) [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/2 "2016-06-11T02:23:38Z")
Is that actually for real? It must be the inspiration for this: [Key & Peele - Power Falcons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBSrP7ub6VA). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/3 "2016-06-12T21:21:20Z")
It was the most racist decision in the history of the universe. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/4 "2016-06-12T21:31:47Z")
First ask yourself, was it sexist to make the other female Power Ranger the Pink Ranger? Once you answer that question, the answer to the other one starts to seem a lot more likely. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/5 "2016-06-12T22:05:29Z")
Well, not all racial allusions are “racist.” When “black power” is celebrated, not condemned, it’s not “racist.” It’s definitely a fine line, and subject to criticism, but it isn’t “racist” exactly. Imagine if each uniform had a photograph of the person inside emblazoned on the shoulder. The black guy has a black guy’s face on the shoulder: racism? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/6 "2016-06-12T22:41:26Z")
So if the black ranger was black, the yellow ranger was Asian, the white ranger was white, and the pink ranger was also white… what were the ethnic compositions of the red, blue and green rangers? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/7 "2016-06-12T22:42:49Z")
Except that black peoples’ faces aren’t actually black and Asian peoples’ faces aren’t actually yellow. They weren’t called the Brown Ranger and the Light Beige Ranger. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/8 "2016-06-12T22:43:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > First ask yourself, was it sexist to make the other female Power Ranger the Pink Ranger? Once you answer that question, the answer to the other one starts to seem a lot more likely. This doesn’t 100% work, since the makers of the US program had to match the figures of the people in the costumes of the original they were using footage from. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/9 "2016-06-12T23:30:14Z")
There were Rangers who weren’t Pink? Cuz she had me distracted, until the first movie. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/10 "2016-06-13T04:17:38Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, not all racial allusions are “racist.” When “black power” is celebrated, not condemned, it’s not “racist.” > > It’s definitely a fine line, and subject to criticism, but it isn’t “racist” exactly. > > Imagine if each uniform had a photograph of the person inside emblazoned on the shoulder. The black guy has a black guy’s face on the shoulder: racism? Parody? > [@Alessan](#): > > So if the black ranger was black, the yellow ranger was Asian, the white ranger was white, and the pink ranger was also white… what were the ethnic compositions of the red, blue and green rangers? The blue one was apparently gay (though not out), and I guess it _could’ve_ been [a homophobic joke on the shitty, awful production group’s part](http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-tv-shows-you-loved-that-were-nightmare-behind-scenes/). Wasn’t the white ranger the same guy as the green(?) in the original series? What’s white on the outside but green on the inside? ---
**Author:** ![aag3981](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@aag3981](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aag3981)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/11 "2016-06-13T07:06:14Z")
If so, how racist does it make you if you didn’t even realize that correlation until reading the title of this thread?? Is that measurement negated by laughing at the title to this thread?? Also, white ranger?? You mean gold ranger… ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/12 "2016-06-13T08:09:25Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Wasn’t the white ranger the same guy as the green(?) in the original series? What’s white on the outside but green on the inside? Vulcans? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/13 "2016-06-13T16:18:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > First ask yourself, was it sexist to make the other female Power Ranger the Pink Ranger? Once you answer that question, the answer to the other one starts to seem a lot more likely. I think it was intentional to make the female rangers Pink & Yellow as more “girly” colors but that doesn’t necessarily follow that they intentionally decided to make someone of Asian descent the Yellow Ranger. I suspect that, if they had a black girl on the team, she would have been the Yellow Ranger before she would have been the Black Ranger. Making the girl Rangers pink and yellow makes some sense from a “marketing to girls” perspective (right or wrong, at least there’s a logic to it) but I doubt that many Asians or African-Americans would have said “Wow, I really relate to the Asian ranger more because she wears yellow!” or the black equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![Nadnerb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@Nadnerb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nadnerb)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/14 "2016-06-13T19:20:07Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Parody? > > The blue one was apparently gay (though not out), and I guess it _could’ve_ been [a homophobic joke on the shitty, awful production group’s part](http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-tv-shows-you-loved-that-were-nightmare-behind-scenes/). > > Wasn’t the white ranger the same guy as the green(?) in the original series? What’s white on the outside but green on the inside? Yes the White Ranger was as same as the Green, will sort of. In the second season of MMPR, they color swapped the Sixth Ranger and that was Tommy. Tommy did eventually become the Red Ranger in Zeo and yet he was part Native American, and was that racist? I don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/15 "2016-06-16T07:18:04Z")
They had two different teams, and they did not have that problem originally (The Yellow Ranger was not Asian, at least.) Furthermore, when they replaced the Red, Black, and Yellow rangers, they did not follow this trope again, which indicates they did not intend to be racist. That said, they did specifically design the character of Zack to have that"hip-hop akido." So they did rely on some black stereotypes. Not really any Asian ones for Trini, though–which makes sense since she was portrayed by a Hispanic actress in the pilot. As for the girls, it’s true that they made Pink a girl to match with the girly Mai from the costume content. But the Yellow Ranger was a guy in the Japanese version. Still, Boi was the least stereotypically masculine, and there was a tradition that the other female color was yellow. ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/16 "2016-06-16T07:42:56Z")
but if they didn’t have Zack and Trini, the creators would then get accused of “erasing” black and Asian people, making them “invisible.” Tokenism is a catch 22. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/17 "2016-06-17T17:12:24Z")
> [@Nadnerb](#): > > I didn’t think so. Because a) we did get another black Black Ranger, which was Will in Operation Overdrive, b) Walter Jones the actor who played Zack said it wasn’t, and c) it wouldn’t hurt to have another Asian Yellow Ranger. What I thought was more racist is that Ashley (Power Rangers Turbo, Power Rangers in Space) and Gia (Megaforce/Super Megaforce, worst season of PR by the way), were originally going to Pink Rangers but became Yellow instead because Asian female came on board. Anyway I would like your input. Of course its racist. That sort of casual racism was common then. Trini the quiet, polite Asian kung fu girl is the yellow ranger. The athletic black kid who fought monster with “hip hop kido” was the black ranger. Of course it was racist but there were much worse examples of racism to focus on at the time. At least they were putting Asians and blacks on kids shows. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-racist-for-zack-and-trini-to-be-the-black-and-yellow-power-rangers/757077/18 "2016-06-17T17:24:05Z")
Y’all got me … As a parent who monitored my children’s television viewing, I found the ethnic/gender mix of the Power Rangers to be consistent with my own teachings. “See kids, all colors can be Power Rangers, even girls who like pink”. I just didn’t see any latent hatred going on here …