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Last week during an episode of The View, the topic of discussion was whether or not American’s get discriminated against due to their names. Raven-Symone referenced a viral YouTube video titled “60 Most Ghetto Names” that co-host Whoopi Goldberg had just shown. Raven-Symone stated, “I am very discriminatory against words like the ones that they were saying in those names. I am not about to hire you if your name is Watermelondrea. It’s just not going to happen. I am not going to hire you.”
Raven quickly felt the backlash from viewers and even her own father, Christopher Pearman, for the above clip. Pearman wrote an open letter on his Facebook page where he stated, “I certainly don’t agree with what she said….but she is damn near 30 years old. She’s a grown a** woman making grown a** mistakes. We all have been guilty of this.” He went on to say that he loves and supports his daughter no matter what, but sometimes she can say some crazy stuff.
Raven then apologized for her insensitive comments in a statement she made on Facebook saying, “I have been denied many jobs because of my skin color, body size and age. Each time I was rejected, my self esteem was negatively effected, so I empathize with those who feel victimized by what I said…We would hope that when it comes to hiring, our names, physical appearance, sexual orientation and age would never outweigh our qualifications, but often times, they do. That’s the truth and it sucks. But I should not be part of the problem, I should be part of the solution.” Raven went on to explain that she would never discriminate against anyone based on their names, and that her previous statements were she said she would are untrue.
