Motown legend Smokey Robinson told CNN’s Chris Wallace why he doesn’t want to be called an “African American,” but rather considers himself a Black American.

This week’s episodes of Wallace’s HBO Max/CNN series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace featured interviews with Robinson and tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian.

During his extensive interview with Robinson, Wallace covered a lot of ground in the icon’s brilliant career, including touching on the issue of race and self-identification:

WALLACE: You have said that you resent the idea of being called an African American, that you are a Black American. Explain.

ROBINSON: You know, Chris, I have been basically all over the world. I’ve never been to Africa. At any time in my life. I’ve never been to Africa.

I think that when they call Black people who were born and raised for generations in this country, if you accept the handle of African American that says that you don’t accept being an American American. You don’t accept being born in Chicago or New York or Detroit, or wherever you were born.

For generations, your family has been here, you know, built this country too sweat and tears and all that, you know, fought in every war. Okay. So, this is my country here.

So, I don’t want to be called African American. I’m an American American. My people died and done everything for this country.

You know, there’s a line in the poem that I wrote about that. And it says all the wonderful Black Americans who served in the armed forces, and gave their lives in all the wars. They didn’t do that for Timbuktu or Cape Town or Kenya. They did that for Mississippi and Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana, Texas and Virginia. So that’s why I feel like that.

Watch above via Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace. The full interviews are available on HBO Max.

The post WATCH: Smokey Robinson Tells Chris Wallace Why He Wants To Be Called ‘Black American’ Not African American first appeared on Mediaite.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/1dIGbwt