OlderYara Shahidi On Her Heritage: 'I Will Never Hide That' I'm Black & Persian
Yara Shahidi speaks on stage during the Why TV is Hotter Than Movies panel at Tina Brown’s 7th Annual Women In The World Summit held at David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on Thursday (April 7) in New York City.
The 16-year-old black-ish actress joined Misha Green and journalist Juju Chang on the panel before heading to the 2016 DVF Awards later that night.
“When diversity came, so did the adversity. So did the comments of ‘you’re basically white,’” Yara shared with Huffington Post on the meaning of heritage and culture. “That’s not what being black means. It’s about the experience. [I]t’s about the heritage, it’s about the culture and it’s about respecting the culture. And it’s about respecting that you are an individual human. I am black and I am [Persian] and I will always rep that. I will never hide that.”
She added, “I feel like that’s why ‘black-ish‘ was so great because that describes my life. I’m literally blackish.. I am proud of my culture. I embrace my culture. I’m a bit of ‘ish.’ I’m a bit of everything so you cannot put how I speak into one category or put my mentality into another category.”
10+ pics inside of Yara Shahidi…
