I know Paul Mooney isn't doing well, but can someone have Raven sit with him for an afternoon? She needs a Wake-Up Call right quick.

I get what she's saying and how she feels, but America doesn't actually work that way, and it's further from ever working that way than I thought it was seven years ago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/05/raven-symone-african-american-gay-labels_n_5929414.html

Raven-Symoné: Don't Label Me 'Gay' Or 'African-American' (VIDEO)
Posted: 10/05/2014 10:30 pm EDT Updated: 2 hours ago

At 28 years old, Raven-Symoné has a very clear sense of who she is -- and isn't. The former "Cosby Show" actress and star of "That's So Raven" recently sat down with Oprah and opened up about her strong sense of self, including her sexuality.

Raven has been relatively quiet about her personal life, but last year, when the Supreme Court ruled the ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, Raven tweeted a status that many saw as her way of coming out:


When Oprah asks if this was her way of saying she is gay, Raven gives a careful answer.

"That was my way of saying I'm proud of the country," she says. "But, I will say that I'm in an amazing, happy relationship with my partner. A woman."

Raven's reluctance to open up about her private life is something she has practiced since her early days as a young star, under her parents' guidance. "People in my family, they've taught me to keep my personal life to myself as much as possible. So, I try my best to hold the fence where I can," Raven says. "But I am proud to be who I am and what I am."

The actress says she has known who she is before she was even a teenager. "In that topic of dating... I knew when I was, like, 12," she tells Oprah. "I was looking at everything."

Still, the Louisiana native never felt the need to define her sexuality and doesn't want anyone else to do it for her.

"I don't want to be labeled 'gay,'" Raven says. "I want to be labeled 'a human who loves humans.'"

In fact, Raven tells Oprah that she rejects the notion of labels completely in all areas of her life. "I'm tired of being labeled," she says. "I'm an American. I'm not an African-American; I'm an American."

The remark seems to catch Oprah off guard. "Oh, girl," Oprah says, shifting in her chair. "Don't set up the Twitter on fire... Oh, my lord. What did you just say?"

"I mean, I don't know where my roots go to," Raven explains. "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."

"You're going to get a lot of flak for saying you're not African-American. You know that, right?" Oprah asks.

Raven puts her hands up. "I don't label myself," she reiterates. "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 Indian, I connect with each culture."

"You are a melting pot in one body," Oprah says.

"Aren't we all?" Raven asks. "Isn't that what America's supposed to be?"

"Oprah: Where Are They Now?" airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on OWN.

.

<--- Big Baller World Order

http://youtu.be/5o37GORoKUQ

#htpw

http://youtu.be/_Yjd1hLJSKg

I'm still tryna find Prince Be from PM Dawn. I been owin him an ass whoopin since middle school for that same suckeration.

Da bayball, babeh. (c) Charlie Kelly.

>http://youtu.be/_Yjd1hLJSKg

does it really matter?

for all my fans who keep my name in their mouth: http://i.imgur.com/v2xNOpS.jpg

~
~
~
~
~
Days like this I miss Sha Mecca

Some people can still look at ourselves and think "less than".

Da bayball, babeh. (c) Charlie Kelly.

~
~
~
~
~
Days like this I miss Sha Mecca

She is so corny for this.

that we are a creolized race, who will dilute and self select ourselves out of existence..soon.

reparations can help firm up those social & culture definitions for folks. im just saying

dont go softly into that good night Black ppl. RAGE


does it really matter?

for all my fans who keep my name in their mouth: http://i.imgur.com/v2xNOpS.jpg

labels?

~
~
~
~
~
Days like this I miss Sha Mecca

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

just gave up thinking when she got tired of using her brain
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

to which...I agree...
I hope that dumb ass term dies a very painful death.

We won't see the end of these delineations in our lifetime. And that's fine. But acting like they're not a meaningful construct for many wrongheaded people is just willful ignorance at worst, wishful thinking at best.

Da bayball, babeh. (c) Charlie Kelly.

i'm hoping she not on that...
.

Nothing against Bill, but the Allen sisters would get her straight...

Now she's gay AND not famous anymore.

(playing about the gay part)

______________________________________

Everything looks like Oprah kissing Harvey Weinstein these days

that's something i expect to hear from a person in their late teens or early 20s.

fuck you.

-"american" proverb

)))--####---###--(((

bunda
<-.-> ^_^ \^0^/
get busy living, or get busy dying.

fuck you.

she clearly stated she considered herself "colorless"
and simply American
African person says they are Black in inclusion to whatever nation they from and yall like "nah"
man FOH with your selective reading

www.royallegacy.org

For Real (Official Video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBRoCPO8esE

lol
.

:P

www.royallegacy.org

For Real (Official Video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBRoCPO8esE

between the Republican post and the Steve Harvey post.....

.

She doesn't believe in labels but then calls herself American

You are what you are whether you accept it or not

dude

everyone wants to be black
except apparently clearly black folk
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Also © Paul Mooney

like we can say all day that heterosexual and homosexual
are recent terms, and that race doesn't exist as anything more than a social construct.

but really, none of that matters because race and orientation
and all of the bullshit that comes with those designation
is a real thing in ppl's minds-- which, or all intents and purposes-- makes it as real as anything else.

but one can flip the script and turn what was supposed to be negative
into a positive.

you can be black, and proud.
gay, and not ashamed.
different without always reaching for everybody else's view of normal.
in fact, the communities that she doesn't want to identify with
have created a space for her to do that. So it's not ALL negative bullshit.
there is also a place to call some kind of home.


she hasn't learned that yet, because it's not an easy lesson.
but I hope she gets it eventually because we all loved her on the Cosby show
and this interview seems like a hot mess.

i went through my phase where i rejected the labeling and blah blah blah. but in the end i embraced labels in part b/c the shorthand provided by labels made it easy to talk about myself and my life w/o going into needlessly cumbersome explanations of shit that everybody i was talking to already understood.

i look back at myself during that time and laugh. LOL

fuck you.

let's move on.
if you have a problem with that, we won't be cool anyway.

there are places i can go to and just be gay without having to
account for every sexual or romantic experience i have ever had,
thought about having, or could conceive of having.

all that highfaluting next level level queer theory shit is above most ppl's pay grade anyway.


gay.

it's so simple, it's almost bold.

anybody that needs more of an explanation doesn't deserve one.
fuck those people.

take that!

fuck you.

Let sixteenstone post some of those casting calls she sifts through. They're very specific in terms of a characters' race, orientation, socioeconomic background, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IzAOtR1AUJ8#t=1113

...I'm from the era when A.I. was the answer, now they think ai is the answer - Marlon Craft

.

How this could fly...

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

not sure if I agree with her, but I get feeling free of racial intolerance and hatred with enough clout and money

she'll have that good wake-up call and come running to the Blacks for help.

fuck you.

yes. in part b/c most wealthy Black women don't shop at Hermes in Paris.

fuck you.

prototype

stand ur ground, believe in urself,
believe in love, prepare urself for love, remove the negativity from ur life, and accept the love u kno u deserve

how dare she identify herself how she pleases.

-->

www.royallegacy.org

For Real (Official Video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBRoCPO8esE

-->

www.royallegacy.org

For Real (Official Video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBRoCPO8esE

which is what i was referring to. cute try though.

www.royallegacy.org

For Real (Official Video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBRoCPO8esE

and i will respect her as a butterfly. and after the world treats her like the nigger dyke they think she is and she comes running to us black gays for help we will embrace her as our sister.

fuck you.

< and after the world
>treats her like the nigger dyke they think she is and she
>comes running to us black gays for help we will embrace her as
>our sister.


-->

and though she doesn't want to be part of communities that have worked to create opportunities that she's taken advantage of (like the ability to sit on national tv and talk openly about her homosexual romantic relationship w/o fear that she'll never work again let alone face action from any of various governments) those communities exist and some would say she owes them a debt. if she finds a way to give back to those communities w/o publicly identifying w/them then that's great too. if she never gives back to any of those communities yet continues to receive the benefits that's life. she won't be the first or last and that's to be expected.

if she continues on this track i'll consider her pretty selfish, naive, deluded and potentially damaged but that's w/o me knowing her and basing my assessment on her statements and my prior personal and observed experience. her world will return w/o regard for my opinion of her especially since i don't consume any of her products or art. i'm merely a casual observer commenting on her on the Internet. my world will also turn if she never identifies as i expect she will or think she should.

fuck you.

I don't think she said all of that (that she doesn't want to be a part
of those communities). She refused to accept the wholesale
labeling, but she seemed to be saying that she's part of the composite
experience of Americanism (inclusive of blacks/gay, but not exclusive of other
experiences) Her experience isn't confined to one isolated grouping
or experience, and that's ok. It would require a much more layered discussion before
it's fair to attribute all of what you said to her.




-->

>I don't think she said all of that (that she doesn't want to
>be a part
>of those communities).

That's the effect of her rejection of the labeling and refusing to identify herself as one of us.

She refused to accept the wholesale
>labeling, but she seemed to be saying that she's part of the
>composite
>experience of Americanism (inclusive of blacks/gay, but not
>exclusive of other
>experiences)

That's cute. She can be grand marshal of the Independence Day Parade but not the Gay Pride Parade or the Black History Month Parade.

Her experience isn't confined to one isolated
>grouping
>or experience, and that's ok.

It is for her, yes. And that's who she's concerned about.

It would require a much more
>layered discussion before
>it's fair to attribute all of what you said to her.

I admitted as much. And I'm not new. I've heard and made statements like hers and so I have some idea who she is based on what she said and my prior experiences.

fuck you.

She's 28, still quite young. It's fair to say that her
experience as a 28-year-old is far diff. from yours,
even though you may be both black & gay. Also,
she's celebrity royalty so class comes into the equation
as well. Point being, there are young people who
aren't having the same experiences that older people
had when they were young.

This is a recurring generational discussion when
it comes to race where older people get mad
when younger people do not view race within the same
prism as older people. And that's ok.


-->

>She's 28, still quite young.

10 yrs older than her.

It's fair to say that her
>experience as a 28-year-old is far diff. from yours,
>even though you may be both black & gay.

mm-hmm. sure.

Also,
>she's celebrity royalty so class comes into the equation
>as well. Point being, there are young people who
>aren't having the same experiences that older people
>had when they were young.

mm-hmm. that is happening.

but even Oprah herself, the Queen of Celebrity, experiences racism.

>This is a recurring generational discussion when
>it comes to race where older people get mad
>when younger people do not view race within the same
>prism as older people. And that's ok.

absolutely. and i hope to be wrong. i hope that some day w/in my lifetime we will

actually, i don't. LOL. i don't want to see the day when everyone identifies as colorless and there is no race. b/c that shit sounds boring as all hell. i like identifying as Black - i love Black culture. i love Black ppl. i love that there's an Us that's distinct from them and that we can all still come together in unity while maintaining our individual identities. i'm not interested in losing that. and i don't think it'll happen w/in my lifetime.

Raven can identify however she wants and my world will continue on as will hers. if she likes it i love it for her.

you said this is a recurring discussion and i agree that it is. and usually the ppl who take Raven's stance are coming from some sort of bubble existence. like Raven who is 'celebrity royalty' and exists separate from the world i inhabit.

i took her stance when i lived in the bubble that was my collegiate alma mater's campus. but after i had been out in the world away from that bubble i saw that all my theories about how the world should work and how the world could work just weren't realistic. at least not 15 yrs ago when i held a position similar to Raven's. in the end it was easier and more realistic for me to embrace the Black and gay communities w/all of their flaws.

it was easier to identify as 'Black' and 'gay' b/c it made conversation more effective. also rejecting those labels hurt my credibility w/ppl who mattered. b/c despite whatever i said about my identity ppl could see my skin color and other physical features and they observed my behavior including my speech patterns and diction and all that and reached the conclusion that i'm Black. so when i denied what was patently obvious i looked like a fool. and i didn't wanna deal w/that all the time - sometimes i was willing to deal but generally i wasn't. same thing w/the gay thing - i could deny the gay label all i wanted but ppl could see me galavanting around town w/dudes and hear me profess my attraction to men and my desire to form romantic relationships w/men and not women and based on that they reached the conclusion that i'm gay. for me to deny it made me seem foolish. again...when i was willing to deal w/that i did but increasingly i wasn't. so i just accepted the labeling thing and found that it opened doors to communities that i'd previously taken for granted.

it's been just fine being gay and Black though i'm SMRT enough to know it's all just constructs and contracts. i'm SMRT but i'm not above that part of life despite how SMRT i am. so i got over myself and embraced Blackness and gayness.

fuck you.

i don't want to see the day when
>everyone identifies as colorless and there is no race. b/c
>that shit sounds boring as all hell. i like identifying as
>Black - i love Black culture. i love Black ppl. i love that
>there's an Us that's distinct from them and that we can all
>still come together in unity while maintaining our individual
>identities. i'm not interested in losing that. and i don't
>think it'll happen w/in my lifetime.

I'm not interested in losing that either, as it's an integral part
of American culture that even I identify with to an extent (as non-black)
based on my upbringing, growing up in black-american areas, having
black cousins, going to howard law etc...For the same reasons, I would
never want to lose the Italian identity I have from my mother's side of
the family - I like that distinctive cultural individuality and think it adds
to the overall societal framework, strengthening it.

Raven was very naive to say "colorless" and obviously she's young and
hyper-privileged (and not indicative of other black/gay experiences) -
which is sort of the point. I think it's a healthy sign when there isn't
necessarily a one-size-fits all monolithic experience that all black gays
must identify with (birthed out of racism and bigotry). To deny that
the racism/bigotry exists is blind and not helpful, but to frame it in
such a way that it will always exist (frozen at a particular era's status-quo,
1982 for example) - is also not helpful, because you must allow for
younger people to have their own experiences without having to pack on
the baggage from older generations - because quite frankly, the world today
is changing so rapidly that even a 15-20 year age different can and will render
very different experiences.

>it was easier to identify as 'Black' and 'gay' b/c it made
>conversation more effective. also rejecting those labels hurt
>my credibility w/ppl who mattered. b/c despite whatever i said
>about my identity ppl could see my skin color and other
>physical features and they observed my behavior including my
>speech patterns and diction and all that and reached the
>conclusion that i'm Black. so when i denied what was patently
>obvious i looked like a fool. and i didn't wanna deal w/that
>all the time - sometimes i was willing to deal but generally i
>wasn't. same thing w/the gay thing - i could deny the gay
>label all i wanted but ppl could see me galavanting around
>town w/dudes and hear me profess my attraction to men and my
>desire to form romantic relationships w/men and not women and
>based on that they reached the conclusion that i'm gay. for
>me to deny it made me seem foolish. again...when i was
>willing to deal w/that i did but increasingly i wasn't. so i
>just accepted the labeling thing and found that it opened
>doors to communities that i'd previously taken for granted.

I think that's a very honest, experience-rich observation and
adaptation of your personal identity that you've developed, and
that only comes with experience to where you come to a point where
you are comfortable w/ your identity that you feel more comfortable with.
What I'm saying is that Raven - even if she is naive/privileged - is entitled
to come to her own determination of self-identity, just like you did. And
it doesn't necessarily have to share the commonalities that many say
it must share in order to be a genuine/legitimate experience.

>it's been just fine being gay and Black though i'm SMRT enough
>to know it's all just constructs and contracts. i'm SMRT but
>i'm not above that part of life despite how SMRT i am. so i
>got over myself and embraced Blackness and gayness.

lol @ SMRT. You removed the vowels to signify that you are up
on KMT'ology, king. I see you. But I actually think this is an important point,
because it is helpful in my estimation to hold those ideas in your head simultaneously
(that race is a construct/social contract system *and* that there's a legitimate
culture that has flowed from those constructs) -- I actually think the whole
'post-racial' vs. 'reality' discussion is unnecessarily polarizing.

It's not about living in a 'colorless' society to me- or being post-racial - but it is
acknowledging that for some people, they don't feel that their external characteristics,
and/or sexual preference is sufficient enough for a wholly defined sense of self-identity.
In other words, if you woke up tomorrow and you weren't gay or black, would you recognize any piece of yourself? Or does you being black/gay comprise the entirety of your being? For some people, I don't think they feel race/sexual orientation are sufficient to describe the composite human experience, and that's not the same as saying 'the world is colorless and race doesn't exist yay!' - it's more acknowledging those factors, but saying that we choose to take our human experience to a place where it's not wholly defined just by those factors. For some that's comfortable, for some it isn't.

-->

>lol @ SMRT. You removed the vowels to signify that you are
>up
>on KMT'ology, king. I see you.

it's this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcGQpjCztgA

a Simpsons reference.

>In other words, if you woke up tomorrow and you weren't gay or
>black, would you recognize any piece of yourself?

yeah. lots.

Or does you
>being black/gay comprise the entirety of your being? For some
>people, I don't think they feel race/sexual orientation are
>sufficient to describe the composite human experience, and
>that's not the same as saying 'the world is colorless and race
>doesn't exist yay!' - it's more acknowledging those factors,
>but saying that we choose to take our human experience to a
>place where it's not wholly defined just by those factors.
>For some that's comfortable, for some it isn't.

oh okay. sure.

fuck you.