That’s So Raven is a Disney Channel Original series featuring a Raven-Symone (as Raven Baxter), Anneliese Van der Pool (as Chelsea Daniels), and Orlando Brown (as Eddie Thomas). In the Season 3 episode, “True Colors”, Raven and Chelsea apply for a job at a clothing store in their mall. Raven, a psychic and fashion fanatic, is more than qualified for the job for she knows a lot about fashion. Chelsea, the not so bright character of the show, is not so qualified, yet she was the one who got the job. Raven doesn’t understand why this would happen until she gets a psychic vision: she sees the store manager saying that she doesn’t hire black people. Raven is disturbed to hear this, and with the encouragement of her parents, she, Chelsea, and Eddie devise a plan to reveal the manager’s racist comments. With the help of a local television reporter, they finally reveal the manager’s comments, record it on video, and reveal it on TV.
I chose this episode because I love the show. It’s really funny and entertaining. This episode was shown during Black History Month, and it shows how blacks are still being discriminated against in the workforce, 144 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was passed. Whether it’s in San Francisco (where the show is set), or in New York, or in Mississippi, blacks are still not treated equally, and white superiority is still there.
The struggles that Raven went through during this episode reflect on Richard Wright’s “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch.” Wright talks about how living in a society where being white was special, a black person had to know where their place was in the workforce and outside of it in order to stay alive. While Wright’s troubles were on a worse level than Raven’s they both shared the same characteristics: being looked at as inferior by white people. Even though Raven was more than qualified, she lacked one main characteristic that the manager was looking for: being white. According to Allan Johnson, managers are more likely to hire people that are just like them, regardless of how qualified they are or not (81). That’s why Chelsea got the job instead of Raven. Chelsea didn’t really know what she was doing, but it was more important that she was white. Chelsea has white privilege and it allowed her to move through life without being marked in ways that identify her as an outsider. Johnson also says that in the work force, “whites don’t find themselves slotted into occupations identified with their race, as blacks are often slotted into support positions or Asians into technical jobs” (27). In addition, whites are more likely to be given promotions or second chances when they fail (Johnson 27).
When I first saw this episode and the topic they wrote about, it didn’t really surprise me because blacks are always being discriminated against in the work force. People still see them as the ones who will do the “dirty jobs”, the jobs no one else wants to do. Times have changed and blacks are just as successful as whites, so people shouldn’t treat them this way. Unfortunately, white superiority will never be banished from society, and this type of discrimination won't be disappearing anytime soon. But I liked Raven, Chelsea, and Eddie’s plan to reveal the manager’s comments. It was really sneaky, and very Raven-like.
Johnson, Allan G. Privilege, Power, and Difference. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006.
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch.” Wright, Richard. Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, Sixth Edition. Edited by Rothenberg, Paula S.. 2004.
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