The Hunger Games star Amandla Stenberg recently got candid about her personal identity, including her sexuality.
The 17-year-old actress, who played Rue in the original film, revealed in a selfie video posted on her Tumblr blog late on Thursday that she “identifies as a black, bisexual woman.” The clip was also posted on the Snapchat of Teen Vogue, which features Amandla on the cover of its February 2016 issue.
“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,” Amandla 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. We are meant to express our joy and our love and our tears and be big and bold and definitely not easy to swallow.”
READ: Justin Bieber comes to Kylie Jenner’s defense after Amandla Stenberg slams her cornrows
Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images
“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 added. “Here I am, being myself and it’s hard and vulnerable and it’s definitely a process but I’m learning and I’m growing.”
Amandla’s mother is African-American and her father is white and from Denmark.
my mom the legend
A photo posted by amandla (@amandlastenberg) on Dec 27, 2015 at 1:09pm PST
Amandla said there is still “a lot of work” to be done for “all women of color.”
“I mean, we need more representation in film and in television and need our voices to be louder in the media,” she said. “And not just women of color, I mean, bisexual women, gay women, transgender women, mentally ill women. I’m sick of all the misogyny and homophobia and transphobia that I see around me and I know you are too.”
Amandla tagged her Tumblr post #hello and #I’m very bisexual. She also changed her profile info to read, “Radiating. She/her. Bisexual.”
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