Rising Hollywood star and all-round outspoken Queen, Amandla Stenberg, has made the brave admission that she stepped away from a role in the blockbuster hit Black Panther due to her issue with colourism.
The actress, who also has an awesome comic book, spoke at the TIFF New Wave Festival in Toronto, according to Teen Vogue, about her potential involvement in the groundbreaking film.
She explained to the audience that, despite being in the running for a role (which one, she did not specify) in the superhero film, she felt that she was not the best person for the job, due to her skin colour.
'Colourism' can be explained as the conscious or unconscious preference for lighter skin tones or the bias against darker skin tones in any race, by someone in or outside of that race.
Black Panther is set in the fictional country of Wakanda and features strong black female and male characters.
Stenberg, despite being a proud African American, is also mixed race and has a relatively light skin tone. She said of her decision, 'One of the most challenging things for me to do was to walk away from Black Panther. I got really, really close and they were like, 'do you want to continue fighting for this?' And I was like, this isn't right.'
Amandla said. 'These are all dark skin actors playing Africans and I feel like it would have just been off to see me as a biracial American with a Nigerian accent just pretending that I'm the same colour as everyone else in the movie.'
Amandla, whose YouTube video 'Don't Cash Crop My Cornrows' about cultural appropriation went viral two years ago, has made the commendable move to put her ideals above her own career, as no doubt her involvement with the film would have been a great success for the young actress.
She concluded, 'That was really challenging, to make that decision, but I have no regrets. I recognise 100% that there are spaces that I should not take up and when I do take up a space it's because I've thought really, really critically about it and I've consulted people I really trust and it feels right.'
The 19 year-old is an amazing role model for people everywhere, so props to Stenberg for putting her money where her mouth is.
Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.
