Sitcom star revives character to reflect on show’s cultural legacy

We were challenged in a way, on a sitcom to deal with very. Heavy issues, which I think is the blessing of the show, is that Debbie Allen and Susan Fails Hill made sure that we were still topical, that we were young people on a college campus. And that’s what young people do. They address issues. But the chance to also make it humorous was always lurking, you know in the midst of the age show when the. The Riot episode, the LA Riot episode was another heavy one. And when I say heavy, I mean these are particular episodes that we have to go to NBC and get their blessing on. Yes, they they really love that we were funny and gifted and talented and all that, but they didn’t necessarily always want to do heavy shows like the AIDS episode. Starring Tisha Campbell and Whoopi Goldberg. How did you convince them that it the moment was then and really, in so many ways still now? Well, I think Debbie Allen had the most to fight with. Armed with having graduated from Howard University, armed with her background on fame and understanding how young people need to see the things on television that they care about. That’s affecting them. The divestment episode with South Africa directly affected the Kimberley Reese character, played by Charnel Brown, because her scholarship was given by this fictitious soda company and we were trying to get them to divest from South Africa. Now, of course Whitley’s stance was that, but don’t you know, lose your scholarship over over that. And and Kim says, well what about all the people in South Africa? And Whitley says, I don’t even know them. Why would I care about them? Yeah, I had the, I had the the opportunity to say all the wrong things on this. I I am laughing because how much do I love that you went right into character and it just took me back. I may have been seven years old or 12 years old or ever else. How old I was the time.