Amandla Stenberg, best known for her role as Rue in The Hunger Games, revealed in a video she posted online following a Teen Vogue Snapchat session that she “identifies as a black, bisexual woman” and feels there are not enough opportunities in media for minority, LGBT, and “mentally ill” women.
“It’s a really, really hard thing to be silenced and it’s deeply bruising to fight against your identity and to mold yourself into shapes that you just shouldn’t in,” the 17-year-old said in the video. “As someone who identifies as a black, bisexual woman, I’ve been through it and it hurts and it’s awkward and it’s uncomfortable…but then I realized because of Solange and Ava DuVernay and Willow [Smith] and all the black girls watching this right now that there’s absolutely nothing to change.”
“We cannot be suppressed,” she declared. “We are meant to express our joy and our love and our tears and be big and bold and definitely not easy to swallow.”
“I definitely believe in the concept of rebellion through selfhood and rebellion just by embracing your true identity, no matter what you’re being told,” she said. “Here I am, being myself and it’s hard and it’s vulnerable and it’s definitely a process but I’m learning and I’m growing.”
Stenberg added she feels black bisexual women need “more representation in film and in television and need our voices to be louder in the media.”
“And not just women of color, I mean, bisexual women, gay women, transgender women, mentally ill women,” she said. “I’m sick of all the misogyny and homophobia and transphobia that I see around me and I know you are too.”
Stenberg was featured on Teen Vogue’s Snapchat account after her first cover for the magazine was revealed this week.
She tweeted out a link to the clip on Friday.
“Shared something on the teenvogue snapchat last night. Bi black girls unite,” she wrote.
“On my way to steal ur girl …,” the teen then wrote alongside a photo of herself from the Teen Vogue shoot on her Instagram page.
A photo posted by amandla (@amandlastenberg) on
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