A Closer Look Editor's Column:Be colorful, not colorless

Since when did "African-American" become a label?

I asked myself that once former child star Raven Symone said that she did not want to be labeled as such.

Symone appeared on Oprah’s Where Are They Now? The mighty Oprah would not neglect to ask about Symone’s sexual orientation after she tweeted,"I can finally get married! Yay government! So proud of you." In response to the supreme court’s decision to overrule the defense of the Marriage Act.

When she told Oprah that she was in a proud relationship with another woman, Oprah inquired about how she was able to identify it when she was younger. When the former Cosby Show star said, "I’m tired of being labeled. I’m an American. Not an African-American.

First, I sincerely think Raven just wasn’t able to articulate what she truly meant.

Growing up, I always heard how the term African American was a vague political description because majority of "Blacks" did not know where our origins derived.

A person of ethnicity are referred to as African American, Asian American, Latin American and the big slap, Native American.

It sounds like the six kingdoms of biology. Homo Sapien Africano.

If people do not physically or cultural identify as white, they’re not American.

But every day you look around, it is clear that White is not America.

An argument you would think she’d mention, but what she later says is far worst.

Raven told Oprah that she didn’t know where her roots were, but she did know that she has roots in Louisiana.

That’s a colorless person," said Symone.

No, Raven that’s exactly what it isn’t.

Growing up in Arkansas I can tell you, people, including those of color, often associate being black as being barbaric.

Our passion is ghetto. Our crime’s are "Black on Black."

If a black person acts crazy in public, someone always whispers, "You can’t take black people no where."

It is our civic duty to negate all the stereotypes standing against us by simply being comfortable in our own Black skin.

We, ESPECIALLY Raven, are no way colorless, but colorFUL.

Whatever you identify as don’t blend in, stand out