ABC/Image Group LAAs she continues to use her platform to speak out against racial injustice, Halsey is acknowledging her privilege as a biracial woman who is “white passing.”
In response to a now-deleted tweet where someone accused her of “never claiming her black side,” the singer explained, “im white passing. it’s not my place to say ‘we.’ it’s my place to help.”
Halsey, whose mother is white and father is black, continued, “i am in pain for my family, but nobody is gonna kill me based on my skin color. I’ve always been proud of who I am but it’d be an absolute disservice to say ‘we’ when I’m not susceptible to the same violence.”
Back in 2017, Halsey opened up about being biracial in an interview with Playboy.
“I’m white-passing. I’ve accepted that about myself and have never tried to control anything about black culture that’s not mine,” she said.
“I look like a white girl, but I don’t feel like one. I’m a black woman,” she continued. “So it’s been weird navigating that.”
Over the weekend, Halsey took part in protests in Los Angeles in the wake of George Floyd‘s death. She later shared photos and video of the peaceful protesters’ harrowing encounters with police, who shot rubber bullets and sprayed tear gas on the crowd.
By Andrea Tuccillo
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im white passing. it’s not my place to say “we”. it’s my place to help. i am in pain for my family, but nobody is gonna kill me based on my skin color. I’ve always been proud of who I am but it’d be an absolute disservice to say “we” when I’m not susceptible to the same violence. https://t.co/2p6RVJixwl
— h (@halsey) June 3, 2020