Sticky label situation

Oprah warned her.

Not once, but twice.

Now actress Raven-Symoné, former Cosby Show sweetheart, sits at the center of a social-media hailstorm that has ruffled her cotton-candy-hued hair and scorched her image.

During an interview Sunday on Oprah: Where Are They Now?, Symoné disassociated herself from labels, declaring that she is "American, not African American."

For those who watched little Olivia grow up on The Cosby Show, groundbreaking for its portrayal of a successful middle-class African American family, the appearance of race denial was searing.

The statement even had Oprah Winfrey almost out of her seat with surprise. And she wasn't the only one.

"At first I thought she was joking," said Nayo Jones, 19, a sophomore African American studies major at Temple University who grew up watching the actress on The Cosby Show, and as she won over rabid tween audiences on That's So Raven, one of the few sitcoms on Disney where the main characters were predominantly people of color.

"I was disappointed," Jones said. "To see someone I grew up watching, and looked up to so much, deny her entire heritage and ancestral experiences, it kind of hurt."

"She sounded a little oblivious and willfully ignorant to the fact that she's black and that she will be viewed as black," said Malcolm Kenyatta, 24, artist and activist.

Yaba Blay, director of Africana studies at Drexel University, says Symoné "rejected the identity that opened up many doors for her."

"All of Raven's performativity in that space was 'very black girl,' " Blay said.

But Antonio Boone, 24, a program associate at Y-HEP (Youth Health Empowerment Project), says Symoné shouldn't have to be representative of the black community.

"I thought it was very bold and very poignant," Boone said. "I salute her for her honesty and her decision to not be labeled and to not conform to society's standards of what she may be."

Boone, who is African American and gay, also defended Symoné's comments about her sexual identity. During the Oprah interview, Symoné confirmed her relationship with model AzMarie Livingston, but said she didn't "want to be labeled gay." Instead, she preferred to be considered a "human who loves humans."

Boone says Symoné wasn't detaching herself from the gay or black experience, but instead "connected herself to every other person in the human race."

Kenyatta is torn on the matter. He identifies himself as male first. Black second. Gay third. American fourth. In the interview, Symoné also said, "I have a lot of things running through my veins."

"That kind of nuance doesn't work in America, not with a history as bloody and as vicious as ours, especially towards African Americans," Kenyatta said. "We are a country that, for better or for worse, labels things, people, and experiences."

In her book (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race, Blay examines how blackness is defined and who is black. The project, which was highlighted on CNN's Black in America, featured 58 people who have various ways of self-identifying but who ultimately consider themselves black. Blay says her subjects were "very clear of the political ramifications of identifying as black."

Temple student and poet Jones was also featured in the Black in America series; alongside Becca Khalil she performed "Ambiguous," a poem she wrote at 16 as a response to constantly being asked what she was instead of who she was. Like Symoné, she declared she wants to be viewed as human. In retrospect, she says "the language can definitely be adjusted, there are parts that are dissociative."

Jones is the daughter of a black mother and white father. She says it isn't so much about labeling but recognizing "where you come from and having a strong sense of cultural identity."

Wednesday, Symoné issued a statement on the backlash through the Grio: "I never said I wasn't black," and said she thinks "it is only positive when we can openly discuss race and being labeled in America."

Blay says frustrations over Symoné's statements have little to do with the actress individually, but what her statement on Oprah reflects. In April, Oprah interviewed singer/songwriter and producer Pharrell Williams, who clarified a term he coined: "new black." He said, " 'New black' doesn't blame other races for our issues." Though Blay feels Symoné's statements aren't completely similar to Pharrell's, she says they are connected.

"It's easy and comfortable to fast-forward through history and try to propel ourselves to a place and time where we're postracial, colorless, and we're all human," Blay said.

Symoné has not yet spoken out on her comments about not wanting to be labeled gay, something Boone says she doesn't have to do.

"It was still very powerful that she decided to say she was in a relationship with a woman and she's happy in that relationship," Boone said. "I think that's just as powerful as saying, 'I'm gay.' "

Kenyatta feels differently. Symoné confirmed her gay relationship but, he says, there's an absence of LGBTQ advocates of color.

Though Symoné's demand for identity agency is liberating for some, to others it's an ideal that can't be sought through self-determination alone.

"That's the world as we want it to be," Kenyatta said. "Not the world as it is."