And that's fine. I watched a clip of Raven-Symoné's interview with Oprah and I'm quite astonished that she's received so much backlash. I understand people's desire to identify with a single culture that but why does that have to extend over an entire skin color? If Raven-Symoné doesn't feel she really identifies as an "African-American" and rather just as an American, okay that's totally understandable. I don't go around calling myself an English-French Canadian-Native American-Indonesian-Chinese-Dutch-American. And my family is so nomadic by nature that I'm sure that's not the end of it. It's too complicated to go into what a lot of us are especially when many Americans like myself don't even know their whole ethnic background.
Labels are tricky. It would be nice to live in a world where people didn't lump you into one group but people are going to do what people are going to do. I dream of the day when I can say "I'm Muslim" and people don't think I'm strict and serious or oppressed. But I think RS is right in her self-identification. Personally, I'm a lot of things, I'm not just one. Some of it's contradictory but hey, being human is complicated.
