On October 9, 2015, "The View co-host," Raven Symone, discussed how she would never hire anyone with a black-sounding name. She used an example of a well-known YouTuber's, Tre-Melvin, alter ego known as Watermelondrea. In her statement she says "I'm not about to hire you if your name is Watermelondrea. It's just not gonna happen. I'm not gonna hire you." Raven Symone’s comment sparked many op-ed all over the media, and on social networks.
In a column called "Raven-Symoné Rips Black Names, But Forgot About Her Own," Ebony's senior writer Jamilah Lemieux pointed out the detrimental implications of discriminating people based on their name. Ebony’s contributing editor Damon Young wrote in his column "Raven-Symoné Doesn't Like Black-Sounding Names? How Ironic states, "Only a person who associates 'blackness' with 'badness' would choose to disparage black names and choose to throw a stereotypical reference in there, too. Which, again, is absurd, because neither having a 'black' name or enjoying watermelon while black are bad things!" The negative response from many people caused Raven Symone to clarify and retract her statement on her Facebook page. Raven apologized for the remarks and swore her comments were made in jest and did not reflect her hiring practices. She said, “As an equal opportunity employer, I have never discriminated against a name … even though I said I would, its not true. My comments were in poor taste. My lack of empathy towards name discrimination was uncalled for.
Raven Symone’s statement brings us an issue in society that is sometimes not carefully viewed discrimination based on names. What is in a name? Shakespeare explored this topic in his famous Romeo and Juliet play when Juliet says to Romeo
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
Juliet's forbidden love stems not for Romeo himself, but for the name he bears. Even as Shakespeare tried to understand the value of the human name, we as a society are still trying to unravel that mystery. As a society we are so quick to judge a “ghetto” name, not realizing the context, history or background of it. We are quick to imagine a person named Shaniqua, looking like this:
Not understanding that a Shaniqua may also look like this:
got an increased job interviews from the same companies who rejected his name as Jose. This is a trend known as whitening your resume, to make you more acceptable to corporations.
It is time we acknowledge the inherent racism in names. It is not correct for a society to judge based on the names of people.
By discriminating people based on their name, we fail to see the potential of that individual or the greatness they can accomplish. In his upcoming documentary Searching for Shaniqua, filmmaker Phill Branch uncovers the debilitating effect one's name can have on them.The first step of ending name discrimination is to recognize it is a problem we are all guilty of and make the conscious effort to not associate name based on what we see in the media or our perceived notions. Maybe the next Shaniqua, or person with a "Ghetto" name might solve one of the world's greatest mysteries.
