‘Bananas … to Represent Me?’: ‘Black Power Ranger’ Walter E. Jones Sounds Off Over Food Stunt on Set and His Response Left Producers Scrambling
Walter E. Jones, who played Zack Taylor as the first Black Power Ranger, seems ever grateful to have gotten the role on the original “Mighty […] ‘Bananas … to Represent Me?’: ‘Black Power Ranger’ Walter E. Jones Sounds Off Over Food Stunt on Set and His Response Left Producers Scrambling
Black News 
Walter E. Jones, who played Zack Taylor as the first Black Power Ranger, seems ever grateful to have gotten the role on the original “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” from 1993 through 1994.
The action-packed show was more than a ‘90s cultural phenomenon that inspired not only a toy line, films, comic books, and video games, but also evolved into various forms of content that continue to resonate with new generations.
Jones portrayed one of five teenagers on the show — later six — who were given the ability to become Power Rangers. The purpose of their powers was to fight evil. The cast was considered diverse for its time, as the six teenagers included both men and women, and the Power Rangers were Hispanic, Asian, Black, and white. But behind the scenes, the disrespect was loud.
In the past, Jones spoke about his decision to leave the show after two seasons because of pay disparity. But in a Feb. 14 interview with “The Art Of Dialogue” podcast, he shared with viewers one instance on set of when he felt he and his culture were disrespected while filming an episode.
He was asked if he dealt with any racism on set, to which he responded, “I didn’t necessarily deal with any racism, but I did deal with some stupidity.”
“There was an episode where we were having a culture fair,” he began, “and I remember I was curious, ‘Oh, I wonder what they’re going to put out for my culture, like as a Black person, what they’re going to put out for me in the culture fair.’”
When he arrived to film, Jones said he was unpleasantly surprised by what he discovered. He said, “And I went out to the set and they had bananas. And I was like, ‘What?’”
Dating back for centuries, Black people have been dehumanized by being likened to monkeys and apes. Popular imagery and media often leaned into that stereotype, pairing primates with bananas to amplify the insult and normalize the comparison.
Jones, who seemed visibly disturbed at this point, continued, “I’m like, of all the things that you could think about of Black culture, bananas is going to represent me? I was like, ‘I’m not — naw, y’all got to get something else.”
He said he refused to go back on set until they got rid of them. “I was like, you could have got black-eyed peas. You could have got, chicken, you could have got anything but bananas. Like, what is that?”
Walter Jones opens up about feeling insulted on the Power Rangers set after bananas were given to him during a culture fair episode to represent Black culture, which led to him refusing to film.
— The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) February 12, 2026
(: The Art Of Dialogue/YouTube) pic.twitter.com/mAOcfES2my
He explained that financial issues could also have been the reason for the selection, but he still didn’t fully excuse the act.
“Now, obviously, they were limited in the budget,” he explained, “Although it was a billion-dollar show, they didn’t give them a lot of money. So, I think they were just trying to go cheap, but I was insulted.”
The now-59-year-old said this was about as far as it got when it came to him feeling offended on set.
“That was about it, bro. I mean, like, nobody ever called me out [of] my name. I was never disrespected. I never had any prejudice issues. Just maybe some stupidity every now and then.”
He gave them a slight benefit of the doubt saying, “I mean, I found it insulting. But if you’re not part of black culture and you don’t know anything about it, then maybe if simple-mindedly you go, ‘Oh, well, think Caribbean.’ You think like the islands? How about that? Like,if they put out coconuts, I’d have been happier. But not bananas.”
Fans weren’t happy about how Jones was treated and seemed even more frustrated that he was attempting to be understanding about it.
On X, one person responding to the clip wrote, “We gotta stop giving excuses simple minded nothing they knew exactly what they were doing bananas???”
Another disappointed user said, “Years later and he still wants to mask racism with stupidity smh.”
Last year in the third episode of “Investigation Discovery,” “Power Rangers” head writer, Tony Oliver reflected on the casting of Jones and Thuy Trang, who was also a Power Ranger and was Vietnamese. He called their casting a mistake based on the color suits they were assigned, which drew some online backlash.
Jones wore the black Power Ranger costume, while Trang wore the yellow suit.
“It was such a mistake,” Oliver said. “None of us are thinking stereotypes. 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.”
In response to Oliver, Jones shared his own post on Instagram and said it was actually an “honor” for him to play the Black Power Ranger.
