Taye Diggs appeared on Steve Harvey’s talk show where he clarifies his statements on his son’s racial identity and discussed how he sent social media into an uproar.
Back in November, Taye Diggs did an interview with TheGrio.com where he discussed his young son, Walker, whose mother is white.
“When you [call biracial kids black], you risk disrespecting that one half of who you are and that’s my fear,” Taye told TheGrio.com. “I don’t want my son to be in a situation where he calls himself black and everyone thinks he has a black mom and a black dad, and then they see a white mother, they wonder, ‘Oh, what’s going on?'”
It didn’t take social media long to lash out at Diggs, saying that he is making his child deny his black side by identified as ‘mixed.’ Many also believed the ‘one drop rule’ negates any other identification of race.
During today’s show, Steve asked Taye Diggs how he would feel if his son ONLY wanted to identify as either black or white, Diggs replies, “I’ll be honest, I would love for him to identify with the black side, because that’s my pride, that’s what I am.”
Steve then brings up the discrepancies in Taye’s previous comments. “They knew [what I meant] the whole time,” said Diggs. “White people want to be black now. It’s the coolest thing. Nobody wants to be white anymore.”
Taye Diggs goes on to agree with Steve’s sentiments that he never said that his son should deny being black, but rather that, as a biracial child, he should acknowledge both his black and white side.
Taye Diggs also discusses the racial issues he and his ex-wife faced when they got married. “I wasn’t on the internet, so I missed that, but apparently people were sending her death threats because she was married to me. We would have to travel to the theater with major security. [Racism] is still out there.”
I agreed with Taye Diggs’ comments when he said it the first time and didn’t understand why people were so up in arms. His child is both black and white. Why shouldn’t he acknowledge both sides of his heritage? Who are we, as the public, to tell him to deny his white side because of a one drop rule? That said, it’s Taye’s child, he can raise him like he sees fit.
