Both situations were drenched in victimhood and white tears, and were resolved for the greater good of the household only after Tokyo and Melissa—the only Black folks in the house—took turns wading through Stoffer’s unseasoned machinations and melodrama. But although The Real World has never shied away from the discomfort of navigating contentious racial dynamics—as The Real World: New York’s Kevin Powell can attest to—as a Black person, it will never not be unsettling to watch on television. And even more so to experience—or relive.

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“I’ve always loved the show. I’ve always loved the forward movement and progress of the show, both societally and culturally. It’s a very important piece of television,” Melissa began. “At the same time, I am a person that was a sole person of color or a Black person. And this could be true for anybody who’s in corporate America, who has a retail job, anybody that is Black in this world. Anybody that is a Black female, gay, or a Black man. There are all of these different machinations of where you are in white space and what it feels like to be unheard or misunderstood. And so I had hunkered down for so many years after my first appearance on the show because I was speaking about racism in what I thought was normal and real terms. But it wasn’t received that way back in 2000 because I guess we weren’t ready to have the conversations that I wanted to have.”

She continued, “I also was very young [then]. I was still learning the language of identity, still learning the language of when it’s time for me to speak up and when it’s not. And so some of the backlash that I received for talking about racism was across the board. It wasn’t just white people being made to feel uncomfortable for something that was very true, it was also people who were not ready to see me as Black because of the way that I presented. And so who was I to speak on these things when I present this way. So in that sense, it just felt like a very lonely road.

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“And so I knew coming into Homecoming, and the way that they presented the show and the premise to me, that it was a way for us to reconnect, heal some wounds, and enjoy the nostalgia of the show. But [it also presented the opportunity] to speak to the impact and the pressures that we carried as very young people who were on a reality TV show talking about important things, like the deconstruction of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, like racism, and being able to do that in a safe space. [...] So for me, when [Julie] peeked into that room and said, ‘Do you see these scratches [Tokyo left] on my back?’ And I was there and I saw everything that happened as it happened. [...] I came into this space wanting to create Black joy with Tokyo because I didn’t get to 20 years ago.”

Thankfully, despite the challenges they faced during their return to New Orleans for Homecoming, Melissa and Tokyo are in a much better place today. And after spending decades estranged, the two are now closer than ever and even consider themselves siblings.

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“I’m genuinely thankful to have this very weird, unique opportunity to reconnect with not just the cast members, but also with the viewing audience,” Melissa said. “I think it was just such a wildly surreal and fascinating experience, and at the end of it, I came away with some friends. So if I can [express] any commentary that I make about the show, it’s just gratitude.”

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“It’s like we were all traveling on this highway of life and this one time we all stopped at this oasis 22 years ago,” Tokyo said. “But then we all left and continued on the highway of life, and then yet again, there’s another oasis or rest stop and it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s [pull over].’ And we did it again. [...] It was just a beautiful thing.”

The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans is available on Paramount+.