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Originally posted by Shakira Stan
From every continent in Africa? Didn't anyone tell her that Africa was a continent. 
Also, I don't understood why she's getting so much backlash for saying that she's not African American but American. Her culture is definitely different from the people who live in Africa.
I'll use Shakira because she's the perfect example for this issue. Her father is Lebanese (born in New York) and mother is Spanish and Italian. Ask her what she is, she'll tell you that she's COLOMBIAN. She's stated that her family has lived in Virginia for the last 400 years. How on earth isn't she American? |
This has been asked and answered so many times . . .
Look, at the end of the day, Raven is a Cosby kid. Now, Dr. Cosby is probably a serial rapist, but "The Cosby Show" and "A Different World" hold a special place in black history. There have literally been whole dissertations, studies, op-eds, courses, books, documentaries etc. written about the impact of the Cosby Show. It literally paved the way for the Obamas. So for any Cosby kid to make the kind of remarks that Raven made in the Oprah interview would prompt ire and side eyes. Those shows were created to give exposure to black actors and showcase an upper middle class black/African American family, at a time when that wasn't the norm in Hollywood, and Raven was one of the lucky beneficiaries. If Raven had said that she considered herself to be black, but not African American during the interview, then there would have been no controversy, because the terms African American and black are often used interchangeably in the US, but she didn't do that. In the Oprah interview, Raven said that she wasn't African American but that she considered herself to be an American, which, in her mind, is "a colorless person." So, it was like a smack in the face to Dr. Cosby and her, huge black/AA following because the remarks made her look like an ingrate and came off like she was trying really hard not to acknowledge her black ancestry.
Please believe that Dr. Cosby wasn't giving an opportunity to play his step granddaughter to a colorless person. He was handing that opportunity to a little, black American girl and that if Raven had been considered anything other than "African American" that she would've never gotten on the casting couch to vie for the role of "Olivia," the role that put her on the map and launched her career. Not even Lisa Bonet has ever publicly said something like the comments Raven made in the Oprah interview, and Bonet actually is bi-racial. Only after Raven was getting roasted on social and black media did she say that she considered herself to be black. That's why so many black people were mad.
stop Raven. And what the **** is she wearing?! I don't know what's more tragic, the way she looks in that picture or her comments.
