She's done it again! "The View" co-host Raven-Symoné received plenty of negative criticism this week after she voiced her opinion on the Spring Valley High School assault video.
The video showed Police deputy officer Ben Fields throwing an uncooperative black female student from her desk and across the floor, as previously reported by HNGN.
During a segment on "After the View" Tuesday, Symoné suggested that both the student and the officer are at fault. The former Disney darling also condemned the student for being on her phone and not respectful following directions when told to put the phone away.
"The girl was told multiple times to get off the phone," Symoné said. "There's no right or reason for him to be doing this type of harm -- that's ridiculous -- but at the same time, you gotta follow the rules in school. First of all, why are there cellphones in school? This shouldn't even be a problem to begin with, and he shouldn't have been acting like that on top of it."
As expected, social media users immediately began bashing the actress, calling her "ignorant" for choosing to support Fields instead of the abused student. A petition surfaced Wednesday on Change.org demanding Barbara Walters, creator of "The View," to remove the outspoken actress from the show.
The petition is claiming that Symoné has been "spouting her ignorant and self-hating spiel on [the show] for long enough." It also referred to Symoné's past incidents, including when the actress said she would never hire a person with a "ghetto name."
The petition has so far reached over 115,000 signatures out of 150,000.
"The final straw was her comment about the recent viral video of the school police officer assaulting the student, where Raven Symoné said 'get off your phone in school then,'" the statement read. "African Americans and black people around the diaspora need a voice representative of their views and not a voice representative of what white people want us to say. We need strong black role models in prominent positions on television an Raven Symoné cannot provide that. That is why I ask that we petition to remove her from 'The View.'"
Neither Symoné nor Walters has commented on the petition.
