If you care to read my words. Here they are. I enjoy being open and
honest in my social media networks because I trust the people I know
will have respectful discourse, while learning new things about each
other and opening our eyes to numerous points of view. Please feel free
to disagree with me on this matter, I have a very strong opinion about
identity, which brings me to this topic.
Raven-Symone
(an actress, who famously played Olivia on “The Cosby Show” and was
Raven on “That’s So Raven”) can identify herself however she pleases.
It’s her identity. If she wants to say she’s American and that she is a
multitude of racial identities, then that is her prerogative. She
happens to like humans. She is in a happy, healthy relationship with a
woman. That is also perfectly fine. I ain’t hatin on your same sex love.
Shiiiiiit, and let me go on and say that your hair was hella laid in
that interview. But let’s not talk about physical features. Let’s talk
about identity.
I don’t identify as African-American either. That label is
problematic. I cringe whenever people say it. It makes me uncomfortable,
especially when White folks say it. I’ve been wondering why. I think
it’s the go to word when people are too afraid to say Black, while
knowing the N-word is absolutely out of the question (though, I can
write a looooong essay about that word and my comfortable uncomfort with
it). Simply put, what do we call ourselves when our true identity has
been stolen, sent on a boat, slaved and hung on trees to be forgotten
like leaves in the wind?
Being called African-American is an unfortunate term. It holds so
much history and is too politically correct for me. I call myself Black.
I’m not the color Black, but Black culture is something I am most
comfortable identifying with. Black culture is my family that moved my
mother from rural Mississippi to Watts, California in the mid-60s after
the Watts Riots or my Texan father, who isn’t in my life anymore, but I
am still connected to Black Southern ideals. Black culture is the
hip-hop, r&b, and soul music my mother and father would play on our
dope ass stereo system when I was growing up. Black culture is learning
to finally love my dark skin complexion in my 20s when I used to try to
scratch it off in my younger years. Black culture is cultivating
beautiful friendships with Black women and understanding that each and
every one of us has dealt with some sort of negative feedback about our
bodies, our hair, our skin tones, being over sexualized, assaulted,
hurt, shamed, and supporting each other through that BULLSHIT; somehow
making each other smile, even though we sometimes don’t on the inside. I
mentioned hair briefly. Black culture is HAIR. I can’t even begin to
tell you how many hairstyles I’ve had in a span of five years, but know I
looked mutha fuckin fly with every new hairdo. Black hair, homies. That
curly shit is so versatile. And if you choose to wear hair that
belonged to someone else at one point (or not, that shit can be
synthetic, too), that’s creativity and sistahs can pull that off so
amazingly. If you really wanna know, I do know that I have some Native
American in my blood. My great grandmother was half Cherokee, but I
don’t identify with being Native American. I couldn’t begin to
understand their struggle or what their culture is like. I’m Black.
That’s how I identify.
I live in Sweden. People are Swedish, but there are so many
identities immigrating to Sweden. People of the Middle East, Africans,
Asians. It’s becoming a melting pot, but Swedish folks still have their
language and their culture. Out here, I am not Black. I am not other’d
by my skin color, I am seen as American. No one asks if I’m African or
what I’m mixed with. They say, “Oh, you’re American!” It interests them.
They are fascinated that I am from California. I have yet to feel that
unspoken awkwardness of being Black in a room full of White, Swedish
people. It’s odd.
But no one here has asked me if being American is how I identify.
Because I actually don’t identify as American. They just assume. I was
born in the U.S, that much is true. And that in itself holds soooooo
much privilege. Do you know how easy it is to travel with a US Passport?
Do you know how easily I skirted through customs just because I’m from
the USA? Or how easy it could be to get citizenship here if I decided to
stay? Being American makes me uncomfortable. It’s ironic how I have so
much privilege in this country, but I barely have privilege in THE
USA!!! In the US, I’m a poor, single Black woman. No one really
sympathizes with that. I worked a shitty minimum wage job ($8.50 an
hour) and no one gave a fuck that I had a college degree. I’m not proud
to be American when there’s Black folks getting profiled, incarcerated,
and murdered every day! I’m not proud to be American when there’s single
Black mothers struggling to feed their kids. Why would I be proud of a
place that I don’t even really belong in? I can attest to that with
conservative attacks on reproductive rights in the government, being
told feminism is a joke, being called a ‘bitch’ or a ‘slut’ when I
ignore male’s sexual advances, being followed in stores, or being told
I’m not attractive (or on the other coin, that I am attractive for a
Black girl… *major side eye and eye roll*)
The list can go on, but I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad. I’m just keeping it real.
Black culture cultivated me. Black culture believes in me when no one
else will. That’s why I choose to identify in that way. If you really
want to know my full identification, I am a Black, young, able-bodied,
vision impaired (with a strong refusal to wear contacts), woman with
strong feminist ideals. But you can call me Bree, as well. My mommy
named me and I love it.
Back to Raven-Symone’. I went on a tangent, an important one, though,
so bear with me. She says she doesn’t want to be called
African-American. I get it. Black folks are a multitude of things, like a
gumbo pot, but it’s still gumbo. We’re still Black. That’s how people
see us in America. So I politely agree and disagree. Being American
ain’t nothin to be proud of if you’re not White, able-bodied, rich or
male (and if you identify as female, you better be attractive). Yeah, we
live in a melting pot, but are we really accepted? We have a long way
to go with that one.
I also disagree with Raven-Symone’ because she had a once in a
lifetime platform (with her laid hair, if I must reiterate, because hair
is a part of Black culture) in an interview with Oprah (Oprah expands
to many audiences) to really be a voice in popular media for Black Queer
women!!!! She totally denied us. Black culture is about sticking
together. It’s about solidarity. She shut that shit down and that’s what
I’m not okay with. When will another Black woman who is attracted to
Black women have that chance? To engage young people or advocate for
Black Queer identity? To see little Olivia on tv to a proud Queer Black
woman would have been sooooooo fascinating for people to see and learn
from!
That could have been you, Raven-Symone’…but you trippin.
Celebrity status is a huge platform in the US. We are constantly
watching them and listening to them whether we like to admit it or not.
So listen, this is kind of a big deal because celebrities have power.
We’ve got people like, Beyonce’, finally identifying as feminist and
wearing that label proudly. She’s still got work to do, but putting
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in the song “Flawless” was huge progress. We’ve
got all kinds of women chanting, “I woke up like dis”, despite the
grammatical incorrectness. Cause we did wake up like this! I’m gonna
pull a Kanye here for a moment to really get my point across: YOU WOKE
UP A WOMAN OF COLOR RAVEN!!! YOU WOKE UP ONE DAY AND REALIZED YOU LIKED
WOMEN! SO WHY BACK DOWN FROM THESE THINGS, WHEN YOU COULD’VE STOOD WITH
US, HOMEGURL??!!??
*kanye shrug*
*Bree Taylor holds a Bachelor’s degree in Child &
Adolescent Development and Counseling at San Francisco State University.
When she isn’t taking care of adorable children as an au pair in
Stockholm, Sweden, she enjoys sharing her radical feminist views on
reproductive justice, Black womanhood, and social injustice.
