Broken clock: Right once a day? Or wrong 99 percent of the time? Either way, since The View keeps giving Raven-Symoné a platform, we have no choice but to talk about whatever comes out of her mouth.
Here’s the latest bon mot out of the mouth of wayward “baes,” about putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Raven would apparently prefer a more “progressive” figure, like Rosa Parks, since Tubman is a different type of hero from a different type of America (that Raven would rather not talk about … and that thing she would like not to talk about is slavery. Shhh. Slavery be controversial, y’all!)
Said That’s So Raven: “No offense to everyone that’s going to be mad at me for saying this, I don’t like that idea. I think we need to move a little bit forward. Let me just preface that I understand the history, I get it, trust me, I was taught, I was in that culture. … I would’ve chosen Rosa Parks.”
Well. Those were words. And some of them made sense! I’m not quite sure what “I was taught, I was in that culture” means. Maybe that was a plea to her haters who accuse her of being slow on the uptake? Maybe she’s a secret social-justice warrior who hits up #BlackLivesMatter under an assumed Twitter handle, shooting out Audre Lorde quotes (“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” #RealTalk #RavenThoughtsMatter”) on the weekends?
Nah, prolly not … but she goes on: “I would have chosen someone that is closer to the progression that we’re doing now. I know you have to understand history so you don’t repeat it, but that doesn’t happen in our world, because we still repeat history of hating other cultures over and over again. I would choose a different woman, no offense.”
Wut?
I dunno. One way to not repeat the HORROR of SLAVERY is to talk about Harriet Tubman, superhero, modern-day Moses, spy for the Union Army, icon to those living with disabilities, with the message that you can do anything anyone else can do, and, in fact, do it better and liberate your people while you’re at it.
There are other reasons not to put Tubman on the $20 bill—namely that she was sold in the name of money, so it’s kind of weird to put her face on it, to commoditize a woman who fought to keep black people from being commodities. That’s how dirty the legacy of slavery is—that mess taints everything. Even things that should be good things, like honoring Tubman.
Still, though, hooray for Raven. She strung together a sentence that didn’t completely send me into a white-hot rage. That’s something!