Kenya Barris, Creator of "Black-ish", Reveals Why NFL Kneeling Protest Episode Was Abandoned

Kenya Barris, creator of "Black-ish," explains why he and ABC decided to end an episode that included a debate about kneeling during the national anthem.

L & # 39; episode "Please, Baby, Please" was originally scheduled to air on February 27, but was removed from the broadcast program a few days before it aired.

The reason? "Creative Differences" between Barris and the network.

Now, Barris, who has since left Disney for the more self-contained Netflix, is looking more into these differences with The Hollywood Reporter.

Although the episode was about Donald Trump, the Charlottesville attacks and the NFL protests on his knees, Barris said he meant the episode was positive.

"When you put a baby to sleep, you try to soothe the anxieties he has," said Barris. "So, it was about me trying to caress the buttocks of the country and soothe people."

Barris said he was letting the network know from the outset that it was not a typical "Black-ish" episode.

"We approached it with the network and the studio because" it's different, "said the 44-year-old showrunner. "We certainly knew people would talk about it."

But despite the approval of the network and studio on all aspects, the show was put on hold a few days before its release date and will probably never see the light of day.

Barris has had many meetings with Disney executives, such as CEO Bob Iger, about the current "political sensitivities "- especially when ABC is looking for more shows that attract people to the red states.

"I know that the partisanship and the way the episode was oriented and the balance of some stories raised some concerns," he said. "On network television, one of the things I've learned is that you have to talk about things on both sides."

Barris asked his editor to test some of the cuts suggested by ABC, but he quickly discovered that there was so much Trump critical material in the script that even trying to make it more balanced was useless.

"What this ended up being, and I think the network would agree, was not a faithful representation of what we intended to do," he said. declared. "Because if it was, we would have shown it."