Raven Symone “I’m Not African American”

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.