Raven-Symoné addresses ‘ghetto name’ backlash: ‘My comment was in poor taste'
On the heels of what must have been a rough weekend, Raven-Symoné has finally come forward to address her controversial comments on The View last week.
On the heels of what must have been a rough weekend, Raven-Symoné has finally come forward to address her controversial comments on The View last week.
After the former child star gleefully declared, “I’m not going to hire you if your name is Watermelon-Andrea,” she was throughly dragged on social media by people itching to remind her that her own name (which includes a misspelling of the name Simone and an accent mark that literally serves no purpose) was arguably just as “ghetto” as the ones she mocked.
Dozens of scathing opinion pieces and unkind memes followed, all designed to illustrate the sheer hypocrisy of her discriminatory views.
Yet it may have been an open letter from her father that finally made the actress see the error of her ways.
Sunday, she released the following statement,
My comments about discrimination have spun out of control.
I’d like to begin by saying that I was not attacking a specific race, but repeating a name that was said in a viral video which has received over 2 million likes.
I have been denied many jobs because of my skin color, body size, and age. Each time I was rejected, my self esteem was negatively effected, so i empathize with those who feel victimized by what I said. We would hope that when it comes to hiring, our names, physical appearance, sexual orientation, and age would never outweigh our qualifications, but often times, they do, thats the truth and it sucks. But I should not be part of the problem, I should be part of the solution.
As an equal opportunity employer, I have never discriminated against a name….even though I said I would, it’s not true. My comment was in poor taste. My lack of empathy towards name discrimination was uncalled for. I would also like to say that on Friday my account was hacked, those are not my words.
While some have pointed out that this doesn’t read like a direct apology, it is definitely the closest admission of wrongdoing that we’ve seen from Raven-Symoné in quite a while.
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