When I originally read that Raven would be joining The View I cringed. I knew exactly what they were doing. No offense to Sherri Shepherd but she was The Views resident village idiot and her departure left an opening. Around this time Raven was fresh off of her “I’m Not African American” interview with Oprah which made her a perfect fit for Sherri Shepherd’s shoes.

Let’s be clear I don’t quite believe Raven Symone is dumb. She’s done pretty well for herself amassing a 55 million dollar net worth and managing to escape being the cliché tragic child star. While Raven may not be dumb, she is however privileged and far removed from the Black experience.

Raven’s quote about not hiring people with “ethnic” names is the most recent in a long list of things she said that has made the Black community collectively say GIRL WHAT???! When Raven received backlash from claiming not to be African American she followed that pearl of wisdom up with “I am from every continent in Africa except from one and I’m from every continent in Europe except from one.”

Actually that quote makes me rethink saying she’s not stupid oh but wait! There’s more.

Raven defended the Univision news caster that said Michelle Obama looked like a monkey by giggling and saying well some people do look like animals. Raven also didn’t think Harriet Tubman should be on the 20 dollar bill because she feels we should “move a little bit forward”. I think Raven has put herself in the category with Stacy Dash where we’d rather trade her for Jon Stewart or Bernie Sanders at this point.

For the most part Raven’s quips have been harmless, dumb but still harmless. However her comments about not hiring people with names like “Watermelondrea” *insert heavy side eye* are dangerous.

First of all as a community African Americans experience unemployment almost twice that of the national average. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics African American men and women are unemployed at a percentage of 12.2 and 10.5 respectively. Compare this to 5.4 and 5.2 for Caucasians and you’ll see that this is a problem.

Also it is no secret that we are discriminated against due to our names and there have been various studies that prove this. A study done by MIT and The University of Chicago shows that White sounding names are 50 percent more likely to get a response than Black sounding names. Perhaps Raven should have done some research before she put her foot back in its home of her mouth. Thank God she wasn’t Condoleeza Rice’s hiring manager.