Feeling Rebloggy Aida Rodriguez is a comedienne.
But what she says below
is no joke.
Aida Rodriguez said in her video
"I’m Puerto Rican/Dominican just like Zoe. And I’m going to say this at the risk of being shunned by some of my Hollywood friends, but I just don’t think it’s cool…some people are making the argument that she’s a black woman. She is, but she’s not African-American. She is Puerto Rican and Dominican. And when I say that I say, yes, we were affected by slavery, and we’ve been effected by the same things, but we also have a country to go back to if we don’t want to be here, we have our own language, we have a flag, we have our own food…
We are not a displaced people. Yet we are people of color, but we are not African-American. Our experiences is not rooted in that of the American experience.
Also, let’s be real: this woman [Nina] fought against colorism. What a slap in the face to put a woman that you have to put a prosthetic nose, and color black, when there are so many black women who could play the role."
~From ClutchMagOnline
As I've said before, I know plenty of light-skinned black women and black american women, both, who understand colorism and also understand some version of Blackface Is Blackface. And I'll say it again, Saldana's lack of understanding is the about a whole lot more than not understanding, not acknowledging, and not caring about colorism and light privilege. The things that Soldana has said indicate to me that she has not been raised or socialized as a black woman or even a woman of color (which she doesn't think exists).
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| "Not because I’m going to crush everybody, but because I’m going to give the best that I can because I strive for excellence. When you don’t get a part, it is for a reason, and these pieces will fall into place soon. … We have a Black president right now, so why the f— would I sit down and talk about how hard it is for Black women in Hollywood when there’s a Black president in my country?” ~ Zoe Saldana, Reportedly in Ebony Magazine 2011 ^^^
The post-racial-age-of-Obama-often-white attitude displayed above is from a world where there is meritocracy but no racism, meritocracy but no colorism that only a white person sans any close non-white friends ought to be able to believe in.
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Saldana's wearing black face is bad enough all by itself. But with her nearly-covert-white-racist denials of the impact of race? She shouldn't have let Nina Simone's name leave her lips much less try to portray her in a movie.
Unless I hear the most abject apology before this Nina Simone movie actually hits the theaters, I think I'm going to try to make sure Saldana does not earn even one more of my black dollars. If a white woman had said what she's said, it wouldn't have taken me ten seconds to come to this conclusion.
Another link to Aida's video here:
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