During an episode of Raven-Symoné’s podcast Tea Time w/ Raven and Miranda, co-hosted with her wife Miranda, she challenged their guest, Kalen Allen, to take away the color from Raven Baxter, the main protagonist of the Disney Channel classic, That’s So Raven. She prompted him to make the Baxter family green and asked: is she still Black? This exchange has kept the timeline busy. Many reactions are skewing toward frustration due to Raven-Symoné’s idea of what it means to be a Black person. This incident isn’t the first time her views on race and ethnicity have gone viral, igniting discussion on not only what it means to be Black, but how she views it personally. Previously, the actress has publicly affirmed that she isn’t African American, but solely American in a 2014 interview with Oprah Winfrey. In another instance, during her time as a host on The View, she made disparaging comments about Black women’s names. If nothing else, her opinions have remained consistent.
But let’s accept the challenge and look at Raven Baxter’s character, her family, and some of the show’s most relevant moments through a lens that doesn’t focus on color. As the question stands – is she still a Black woman? The simple answer is yes.
For the sake of giving the concept of Blackness its due respect, we must first unpack why the experience of being Black isn’t as surface-level as complexion. To exist as a Black person, no matter where you’re from or where your origins are rooted, is to understand that…
Source link
Read Full Article by Danyale Freeman at www.ebony.com
Source link
