re: RIP Rafiki, Robert Guillaume dies at 89

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he's now Isaac Jaffe

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Or the ethics professor in Saved By the Bell: The College Years.



As well as the slick car salesman from Fresh Price of Bel Air.

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Taking a role as a butler or a maid was seen as a step back (and still is).

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This is reminiscent of Nichelle Nichols in Star Trek - she was ready to jump (after all, she had been one of 2 of Big Gene's girlfriends cast in the show) after the first season, because the role
was so low profile (there were lots of white folks on the show that were low profile, too - part time crew and the other girlfriend, Magel Barret's Nurse Chapel), but she was on the bridge - she was in her red outfit ( ) in almost every far shot of the bridge and when it tracked from Kirk's command chair to Spock's science station and back. Often she was the voice of the ship to the crew on the ground.

But, it was, effectively a space "receptionist" job and she wanted to do other things. (Shatner was not only a scene stealer, he was pushing for rewrites and focusing the show more intently on Kirk, which obviously, finite number of scenes and frames, cut other characters out). Dr. King (yes, that Dr. King) convinced Nichols to stay with the show. Essentially, however she felt about it, she was a bridge officer - an equal, capable and integral part of the crew - when most young black girls only saw black women on screen as domestics, prostitutes or worse.

Now, that's not true today, when the pendulum has clearly swung way, way, way too far. But in the 1960s and 1970s, certainly, it was a legitimate concern of a black actor in taking the role of Benson. I applaud him for making lemonade out of it.

Talent is talent. Cream rises to the top.