Zoe Kravitz drew the ire of Instagram users when she seemed to distance herself from identifying as a Black, despite saying she up was embracing her African-American identify.
The actress posted an image on Instagram Wednesday, July 12, posing in front of a quote by the late American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, which read, “I am not a Black artist, I am an artist.”
She accompanied the post with the caption “I think I’ll take a black walk. And have a black talk. With my Black friend. Maybe have some black lunch … Happy to be Black. Just don’t need to say it in front of everything.”
The post, which has since been deleted, stirred a flurry of criticism from Twitter users.
https://twitter.com/amazontrollop/status/885560716018712577
https://twitter.com/Saaaa_hot/status/885602276362002432
https://twitter.com/Imani_Yvonne/status/885559978605588482
Zoe Kravitz, sit your Black ass down.
(P.S. Tell your daddy I said hi. 👅) https://t.co/eRcRSNGfb0
— 𝕂𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕖 𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕜𝕖𝕟𝕓𝕣𝕠𝕔𝕜 📚 (@elizadwrites) July 13, 2017
Kravitz later replaced the image with a photo of Basquiat — whose painting “Untitled” sold for $110.5 million in May, a record for a U.S. artist — and the simple caption ” #artisart.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWflKTfBvzR/
Kravitz has spoken out on this topic previously.
“The older I get, the more I experience life, I am identifying more and more with being Black, and what that means,” she said in the May issue of Allure, “being more and more proud of that and feeling connected to my roots and my history.”
However, the daughter of two mixed parents has admitted she struggled with completely embracing her Black heritage, especially because of her experience at private school.
“I think a lot of that made me want to blend in or not be looked at as Black,” she said. “The white kids are always talking about your hair and making you feel weird. I had this struggle of accepting myself as Black and loving that part of myself.”
