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 not first or second-generation African American and identifies as simply American.
“Stop mislabeling us,” she said.
Raven-Symoné added that nowadays, she feels more people understand the root of what she’s talking about and thinks the younger generation is “starting to break down those barriers of labeling.”
The “That’s So Raven” star said that her mom thought Winfrey set her up for backlash because she reacted to her comments right away, instead of letting her continue.
The actor said that when she walked off stage she felt like she had “said something that’s bad, which contradicts who I am as a human.”
She doesn’t think that Winfrey set her up, but she did think the host shined a light on what she said for “people to scrutinize more.”
Raven-Symoné said that the original interview with Winfrey was supposed to be her coming out interview. Instead, it became a conversation about labels. In that same 2014 interview before the African American comments, Raven-Symoné told Winfrey that she didn’t want to be labeled as gay.
“I want to be labeled a human who loves humans,” she replied, before making her comments about being “tired of being labeled.”
“I said, ‘Don’t label me’ and it turned into that instead of my coming out,” she said.
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