Releasing a creative project is like taking a shot in the dark. You might have a sense of what your audience likes, but you can’t predict how they’ll respond. Sometimes you hit the mark. Other times, you miss entirely. Given the backlash, Southern Fried Rice—a series on the KEY TV Network—is a clear case of the latter.
The show centers on Koko Jones, a Korean American student raised by Black Southern parents, who attends a fictional HBCU called Wright University. While some praised the series and stressed the importance of supporting Black creative projects, others couldn’t get past the discomfort of seeing Black characters play second fiddle to an Asian protagonist in a story about Black culture. The series has ignited a broader debate about racial inclusivity—both in higher education and on screen.
Understanding the backlash requires a little history. HBCUs were founded after the Civil War to expand educational opportunities for Black Americans who were systematically excluded from predominantly white institutions. The Morrill Act of 1890 granted land and federal funding to colleges for African Americans, paving the way for 21 Historically Black Land-Grant Universities (HBLGUs), according to Purdue University professors Brandon C.M. Allen and Levon T. Esters. Although these schools remain underfunded compared to their white counterparts, they’ve long been essential spaces for Black students to learn and thrive within supportive communities.
The dynamic between Black, white, and Asian Americans adds another layer. Political scientist Claire Jean Kim has described Asian Americans as being “racially triangulated” in relation to Black and white Americans. As early as 1879, congressional hearings on Chinese immigration revealed this hierarchy. One U.S. consul claimed, “Chinese are a far superior race to the Negro race physiologically and mentally,” while another Californian declared, “One white man is worth two chinamen; one chinaman is worth two negroes.” These attitudes helped seed the “model minority” myth, which falsely positions Asian Americans as more intelligent, disciplined, and deserving than Black Americans—a narrative that continues to harm both groups.
Systemic racism ensured that Black people faced unique, enduring barriers to opportunity. Redlining, for example, kept Black families from securing home loans, locking generations into underfunded neighborhoods. Because K–12 schools are funded by property taxes, those same policies limited educational access for Black students—undermining college admissions metrics like test scores. The result: a landscape where opportunity was never equal.
The 2023 Supreme Court ruling that struck down race-based affirmative action deepened this divide. One of the movement’s early champions, Asian student Michael Wang, later expressed regret for his role, acknowledging that affirmative action wasn’t the reason for his rejections. Yet the damage was done. After the ban, Black enrollment dropped sharply at elite universities—Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton among them. As one Princeton student said, “If this trend continues, in three years this campus will be as Black as it was in the Civil Rights era.”
Given that some Asian Americans were at the forefront of dismantling affirmative action, it’s unsurprising that a show about an Asian American student attending an HBCU would strike a nerve. The irony isn’t lost: in real life, some Asian Americans argued that too many Black students were admitted to elite schools. In Southern Fried Rice, an Asian American character seeks refuge in a historically Black space—portrayed as inclusive and nurturing—without acknowledging that reciprocity is often missing. Inclusivity, when one-sided, can feel exploitative rather than collaborative.
In one scene, Koko’s roommate Joy, a dark-skinned Black woman, tells her she can’t “earn Blackness” just because she “can stay on tune” or “hit us with a couple of Black facts.” Koko insists that because her family is Black, she doesn’t “have to study Black culture.” But Blackness is more than proximity—it’s lived experience, history, and identity. Whether intentional or not, Southern Fried Rice risks trivializing that experience by pushing Black characters to the margins. The backlash suggests that Black audiences want representation that feels authentic, not tokenistic. “We’re tired of non-Black people centering themselves in our spaces while our voices are ignored,” one HBCU student said.
The show compounds the issue by portraying a Black woman as the “villain” for voicing discomfort about cultural appropriation. Yet when backlash emerged, KEY TV founder Keke Palmer seemed caught off guard. Her response—that she aims to “fund and support creators of color”—sidestepped the core critique: that Southern Fried Rice centers a non-Black perspective in an unmistakably Black cultural setting. Writer Nakia Stephens defended the show as an attempt to “create dialogue,” and while it succeeded in that sense, many found the conversation frustratingly one-sided.
For some viewers, Southern Fried Rice crossed a line by centering a non-Black character in a space historically created for—and by—Black people. While its creators encouraged audiences to “watch before judging,” the show’s very premise made that difficult for many. By overlooking the complex history of Black–Asian relations—and the lived realities of policies like affirmative action—the narrative missed a chance to add depth to an important conversation.
In contrast, audiences reminisced about a show that did get it right: A Different World (1987). Centered on Denise Huxtable and her peers at the fictional Hillman College, it portrayed the richness and diversity of Black life at an HBCU. Interestingly, the original pilot for A Different World featured a White protagonist navigating life at a predominantly Black school. When producers reworked the show to center a Black cast, it became a cultural phenomenon, drawing more than 34 million weekly viewers. Southern Fried Rice isn’t the first show to try centering a non-Black character in a Black collegiate setting—but it’s the latest to learn how easily that approach can alienate the very audience it seeks to represent.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Allison Gaines' work on Medium.