"Hunger Games" actress Amandla Stenberg has never been quiet about the racial politics in the Entertainment industry - so why start now! The actress got into a brief Instagram war with Kylie Jenner after the reality star shared a photo via Instagram of her with her hair in cornrows alongside a caption that read, "I woke up like disss."
"When u appropriate black features and culture but fail to use ur position of power to help black Americans by directing attention towards ur wigs instead of police brutality or racism #whitegirlsdoitbetter," Stenberg commented under her photo.
Jenner replied, "@amandlastenberg Mad if I don't, Mad if I do...Go hang w Jaden [Smith] or something." Her response was in reference to her mutual friend and once rumored boyfriend, Jaden Smith, who took Stenberg to her prom in May.
Stenberg, who previously discussed the issue of white individuals wearing cornrows in her "Don't Cash Crop My Cornrows" video, took to Twitter on Monday to respond to Jenner's comment in a long statement about cultural appropriation.
"Black features are beautiful," Stenberg wrote in her note. "Black women are not. White women are paragons of virtue and desire. Black women are objects of fetishism and brutality. This, at least, seems to be the mentality surrounding black femininity and beauty in a society built upon eurocentric beauty standards."
She continued, "While white women are praised for altering their bodies, plumping their lips and tanning their skin, black women are shamed although the same features exist on them naturally. This double standard is one string in the netting that surrounds black female sexuality - web that entraps black women when they claim sexual agency. Deeply ingrained into a culture is the notion that black female bodies, at the intersect of oppression, are less than human and therefore unattractive. They are symbols of pain, trauma, and degradation."
Here's Stenberg's statement in full.
words by me pic.twitter.com/g0HapkvfAt — Amandla Stenberg (@amandlastenberg) July 13, 2015
