Raven-Symoné is clearing up controversial comments she made back in 2014.
In a new episode of “Tea Time With Raven & Miranda,” Raven-Symoné addressed her interview with Oprah Winfrey when she said that she’s “an American, I’m not an African American.”
The “Cheetah Girls” star said that she was misunderstood and people didn’t hear what she said clearly.
“I wanna talk about something that has haunted me since 2014,” she began. “When that aired, I felt like the entire internet exploded and threw my name in the garbage. There was so much backlash from my community and others that misunderstood, slash didn’t hear the exact words that I said.”
“And the exact words that I said is that ‘I’m an American, not an African American,’” she continued. “A lot of people on the internet thought I said that I wasn’t Black, and I never said that. There’s a difference between being Black and African.”
Raven-Symoné’s wife, Miranda Pearman-Maday, asked her to clarify what she had meant.
“When I say that African American does not align with me, that label, it doesn’t mean that I’m negating my Blackness or I’m not Black,” she explained. “It means I am from this country, I was born here, my mom, my dad, my great-great-great-great-great — and that’s what I’m saying. The pure logistics of it.”
She said that she understands her history and where her ancestors came from, adding, she knows “how much blood, sweat and tears they’ve soaked into this earth in order to create the America that I live in today: free, happy, tax-paying, American citizen.”
Raven-Symoné continued by saying that when she’s in another country people tend to say, “There’s an American, plain and simple” and not, “Look at that African American over there.”
When Pearman-Maday asked how the public’s reaction felt at that time, the actor said that she “felt attacked.”
“I felt judged and not heard,” she said, explaining that she’s…
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