“So for you to turn around and say to me, I’m ‘denying my Blackness.’
On what grounds?”
Now, he is addressing the backlash.
Idris Elba.Mike Marsland/WireImage
“Me saying I don’t like to call myself a Black actor is my prerogative.
That’s me, not you,” he told the outlet.
“So for you to turn around and say to me, I’m ‘denying my Blackness.’
Did you hear that?
Where am I denying it?
It’s just stupid.
“As humans, we are obsessed with race.
And that obsession can really hinder people’s aspirations, hinder people’s growth,” he said.
“Racism should be a topic for discussion, sure.
Racism is very real.
But from my perspective, it’s only as powerful as you allow it to be.”
We’ve got to grow.
We’ve got to.
Our skin is no more than that: It’s just skin.
“I think we should fixate on who is typecasting and putting actors in boxes because of this.
Not on making weird adjustments for them,” Boyega wrote on Twitter.
“We continuously focus on what we have to do so they don’t do this or that.
We BLACK and that’s that.”
Elba previously took to Twitter to address the negative reaction to his remarks after the article was released.
“Being an ‘actor’ is a profession, like being an ‘architect.’
They are not defined by race.
However, if YOU define your work by your race, that is your [sic] perogative.”
