Amber Stevens West, one of the stars of the new Starz series, “Run the World,” said she originally didn’t think she was Black enough to be on the show, during a GMA interview.
Amber interviewed with her co-star Andrea Bourdeaux, and she had just beautifully summed up the Black experience by stating, “if you’re a Black woman and you’re living life then you’re having a Black experience.”
Unknowingly, Andrea had provided an amazing assist for the GMA co-host to ask Amber why she didn’t feel she was Black enough initially to be on the show.
To which Amber responds:
Yeah, you know I just think that I was conditioned for so long to think I didn’t fit in because like Angela said we’ve been kind of depicted as one way like Black women are like this, and they do this, and they act like this.
And, I never fit into that and I never saw myself represented in the things that I was consuming like TV shows and stuff.
And, so when they approached me and said that this is a comedy about four women living in Harlem, Black women, I was like, Me!… Why are you asking me? That’s not what I do… I’m the girl from Beverly Hills, you know it just didn’t seem like it would fit.
But, it was very validating to be approached and say no you are enough. You are… like she said a black woman having a black experience, and not all of us are the same.
And, I didn’t really realize how much that resonated with me until we were filming the series and we were about halfway through filming.
And, we started doing press and someone asked me what’s it like being a… is it important to you or why is it important that this is a show about four black women, starring four black women, and I just burst into tears.
And, I was like, wow!… I didn’t realize that this was so impactful for me just on a personal level.
Watch the GMA interview below:
If you have not seen “Run The World” I highly recommend it.
The next episode (E6) comes on Sunday (6/27) at 8:30 PM EST on the Starz network.
