Keegan-Michael Key
The actor is of African, Polish and Belgian Flemish heritage. Key has described being ostracised by his black classmates when they realised his mother is white.
“For me, it was very hard and rough. When you’re a child, the most important thing is to be able to live a life of comfort. You want to be sure that the moon goes up at night and the sun comes up in the morning and dad comes home from work. At school, it was not comfortable,” said Key in a 2012 interview with CNN.
Tracee Ellis Ross
The daughter of the famous Diana Ross and Bob Ellis, Tracee is of Black and Jewish heritage. “A mixed kid in America is a mixed kid in America. And there’s a lot of very archetypal experiences that we have that are the contradictions of these two heritages,” she said.
“And truthfully for me, my experiences within my family, similar to this family, was a protected safe environment, that my mixedness didn’t necessarily come up in a big way. But how you push up against the world is sort of where that gets ignited,” she continued.
Zendaya
Spiderman actress is of Black, German, Irish, English and Scottish heritage. When discussing colourism and her own privileges at the 2018 Beautycon Festival, the star said: “As a Black woman, as a light-skinned Black woman, it’s important that I’m using my privilege, my platform to show you how much beauty there is in the African-American community.”
“I am Hollywood’s, I guess you could say, acceptable version of a Black girl and that needs to change,” she said. “We’re vastly too beautiful and too interesting for me to be the only representation of that. What I’m saying, it’s about creating those opportunities. Sometimes you have to create those paths. And that’s with anything — Hollywood, art, whatever.”
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