Raven-Symone, who played the adorable Olivia Huxtable on The Cosby Show, is again facing scrutiny from social media on comments she made about the South Carolina officer who forcibly removed a female student from the classroom.
Speaking to her co-hosts on The View, Symone said that yes, the officer did use extreme force, but the student was also to blame:
"The girl was told multiple times to get off the phone…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."
Some took issue with Symone’s comments – thinking she was defending Deputy Ben Fields for the incident. She wasn’t. Symone only said that rules should be followed in school and the student was in the wrong in the first place. That’s it. She even noted that the previous complaints about Fields, and cited a lawsuit from 2007 where he was sued for false arrest, excessive force and battery. She went on to say, “He has a record and he’s still hired. But at the same time, get off yo’ phone. You are in school. Get off yo’ phone.”
Co-host Michelle Collins interjected, “I mean, the girl was obviously not following the rules, but you cannot lay your hands on someone…I mean, maybe even in jail, but even on Beyond Scared Straight, which you know is a show I love, they never hit the kids like that."
Paula Faris, another co-host, added her thoughts to the argument by saying young people don’t have respect for authority and that parents aren’t demanding respect therefore their kids are turning out to be disrespectful.
Collins interrupted Faris by saying, "But you also should not beat students…I'm sorry, I mean...that looked like CGI. He flung her out of that chair so fast it looked fake."
Symone has faced the wrath from social media before. In 2014 she told Oprah she didn’t like to be labeled – that she considered herself American – not African-American – and more recently she made headlines when she said she wouldn’t hire someone if they had a “ghetto” sounding name.
