Zendaya Coleman has proved once again that she’s made of class and intelligence. Coleman saw Giuliana Rancic’s on-air apology regarding remarks she made about her dreadlocks, and thanked her while giving a lesson on prejudice.
On Tuesday Rancic apologized on the air during her Fashion Police show for saying that Coleman’s hair Oscar night looked as if it smelled like patchouli oil and weed. Rancic’s second apology was better received than the first one she tweeted, but Coleman’s response was pure gold.
“I appreciate your apology and I’m glad it was a learning experience for you and for the network,” Coleman stated on Twitter. “I hope that others negatively affected by her words can also find it in their hearts to accept her apology as well.”
During her aired apology Rancic stated, “This really has been a learning experience for me. I've learned a lot today and this incident has taught me to be a lot more aware of clichés and stereotypes, how much damage they can do. And that I am responsible, as we all are, to not perpetuate them further.”
In her response, Coleman gave a lesson on prejudice and showed she’s wise beyond her 18 years.
https://twitter.com/Zendaya/status/570665155165421568
“Studies have shown that even though we try to act without prejudice, sometimes it’s just hidden inside us due to our past or surroundings. That hidden prejudice is often influential in our actions. It’s our job to spot these issues within others and ourselves and destroy them before they become hurtful,” she wrote. “I have so many people looking up to me, that I couldn’t be scared, wait it out, nor could I just stand up for me; I had to do it for WE.”
And she didn’t leave out people who attacked Rancic’s appearance, either.
“Body shaming and other hurtful tactics will never get the job done,” she wrote. “As hard as it was to stop MYSELF from being ignorant and from posting the first mean words that came to my mind because I was hurt, I had to think about the bigger picture. Instead I sat for two hours on my phone, doing my research and formulating an educated response.”
In closing, Coleman quoted Martin Luther King Jr: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”