Walter Jones isn’t worried about the color of his suit.
After Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers writer Tony Oliver expressed his regret for inadvertently dressing the show’s Black character in black and Asian character in yellow, Walter shared his thoughts on wearing the black suit.
“While some choose to seek out the negative, I’ve always believed in focusing on the positive,” Walter wrote on Instagram April 9. “I understand the impulse to address what might be seen as cultural insensitivity.”
“But calling it a ‘mistake,’” he continued, “would dismiss the impact it had on countless people around the world who found inspiration and representation in TV’s first Black superhero — morphin’ into none other than the Black Power Ranger!”
Instead, the 54-year-old described his casting as “a milestone” and “an honor.”
Oliver reflected on the eyebrow-raising casting of Walter as the Black Ranger and the late Thuy Trang as the Yellow Ranger in the new docuseries Hollywood Demons.
“None of us are thinking stereotypes,” he said in the April 7 episode. “It was my assistant who pointed it out in a meeting one day, that we had made the Black character the Black Ranger and the Asian character the Yellow Ranger. It was such a mistake.”
But he also emphasized that Thuy was not their “original Yellow Ranger.”
“It was actually Audri DuBois,” he explained. “She was the one who did the pilot episode.”
Audri, who is white, shared in the episode that she quit the show due to a pay dispute. Eventually, Thuy joined the cast and was edited into the pilot before its premiere.
But even two decades prior, the color of Walter and Thuy’s uniform was still noticed.
“My name’s Walter Jones, I play Zack,” the former said in a behind-the-scenes 1993 clip played in the episode. “I’m Black, and I play the Black Ranger. Go figure.”
Amy Jo Johnson, who starred as the Pink Ranger, previously noted that Walter “used to crack good-humored jokes about that.”
“I think it’s funny if it was done unintentionally by the big bosses,” she explained in a 2013 oral history of the series. “But really? Come on. It wouldn’t happen today.”
