Actress Raven-Symone sat dwon for an interveiw with told Oprah Winfrey on OWN on Sunday night, and told the BIG O why she doesn’t like to be labeled as gay or African-American.
“I don’t want to be labeled gay,” Raven-Symone said. “I want to be labeled a human who loves humans.”
Simone confirmed that she’s in “an amazing, happy relationship” with her partner, who is a woman, but added that she doesn’t “need a categorizing statement for it.”
“I’m tired of being labeled,” Raven-Symone told Winfrey. “I’m an American; I’m not an African-American. I’m an American.”
Symone defended her stance, explaining that she doesn’t “know where my roots go to; I don’t know how far back they go. I don’t know what country in Africa I’m from. But I do know that my roots are in Louisiana. I’m an American, and that’s a colorless person, because we’re all people. I have lots of things running through my veins.”
Winfrey, taken aback told Symone that she was in for “a lot of flak for saying you’re not African-American,”
Symone countered: “I don’t label myself. What I really mean by that is I’m an American. I have darker skin. I have a nice, interesting grade of hair. I connect with Caucasian. I connect with Asian. I connect with black. … I connect with each culture. … Aren’t we all (a melting pot)? Isn’t that what America’s supposed to be?”
