In an interview with author and scholar Dr. Boyce Watkins, Damon Dash, Jay Z’s former manager and business partner at Roc-a-Fella Records, said his cousin actress Stacey Dash is “coonin’” for her comments critical of BET in the wake of calls for blacks to boycott the Oscars.
“I bet if she was getting nominated for Oscars, and she was doing an abundance of movies, I doubt she would be on Fox doing those interviews. I love my cousin. … and because I don’t support her opinions or her perspective, it really isn’t the best thing to hear Dash associated with coonin’,” Damon Dash said.
“I think it’s ludicrous,” Stacey Dash told Fox News about calls to boycott the Oscars over the lack of black actors nominated by the Academy Awards. “We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration, and if we don’t want segregation, then we need to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the Image Awards where you are only awarded if you are black.”
When asked what he thought when he saw the controversy around Stacey Dash’s comments, Damon Dash said, “I’m used to it. Stacey’s always saying … something that’s going to evoke an emotion, especially when it comes to the culture.”
“It’s annoying having a cousin that looks like that and has an opinion and that works for Fox News,” he said, adding that while Stacy Dash is entitled to her own perspective, “I just think that there has to be a consciousness of how it affects other people.”
Dr. Watkins compared Stacey Dash to author and conservative commentator Ann Coulter, calling her “a black Ann Coulter.” Damon Dash agreed.
“I think that seems fairly obvious. When you get on Fox News, and you say something as shocking like that, I think you would know what the repercussions of the backlash is. I think the fact that the platform is Fox News, I think it’s very reflective of how she probably said what she said. I don’t think she actually meant - I would hope, I haven’t spoke to her since - that there’s segregation,” he said.
“I just think her point must have been that if you’re going to say BET or something that’s focused and only on black people, then you can’t get mad when white people have their own,” Dash said.
“As far as all of this with the Oscars, my point has always been, I’m not trying to be invited to someone else’s party that doesn’t want me there. It’s their party. They can do whatever they want. I don’t have to support it, but I’m not going to be mad at what someone does in their house. That culturally is not ours - the Oscars,” Dash added.
“Even though there’s a black president these days, Hollywood we all know is not run by black people, so I’ve always said that we need to make our own equivalent of the Oscars, which doesn’t have to be only for black people. It should just be something that comes from our culture, that’s run by our culture, so that if we like something white or black or whatever it is, we can have a platform to showcase that and to give those accolades as we feel,” he said.
H/T Financial Juneteenth