Credit: J. Countess / Getty
Many a woman has found herself passing the time scrolling through Kofi Siriboe’s social media accounts, and if you’re one such fan or follower then you know there’s a lot more there than pretty pictures.
If Chance the Rapper is the posterchild for #BlackBoyJoy, Kofi could very well be the runner up, demonstrating non-stereotypical elements of fashionable cool at every turn. And somehow he manages to uplift Black women at the same time, routinely taking the time to praise the inner and outer beauty of Black womanhood and refusing to let anyone question his motives or stop him from celebrating us. How does he do it? The better question might be why does he do it.
“I love Black women, and I shouldn’t have to tiptoe around that fact,” the 23-year-old actor recently told Elle magazine. “That’s not to exclude anybody—I’m all about inclusion—but there is a lot of exclusion that happens naturally, systematically, and institutionally, to Black women.”
That love appears to be very much rooted in the affection and stability he’s received from the tribe of women who’ve surrounded Kofi his whole life, from his mother Koshie, aunts and even his friends’ mothers, to now Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey, the executive producers who brought “Queen Sugar” and his character Ralph Angel, not to mention his acting career, to life.
“[My mom]…didn’t have the most loving parents in the world. For her to not have that, to be able to learn from the mistakes that her parents made, and to give love to her kids tenfold—I think that’s an example of what all Black women represent,” he told the mag. “You know, the world kind of shuns women in general, and if you’re a Black woman, I’m sure you feel that ten times more.
“So for a Black woman to feel that, and still find love within herself to give to her children, I feel like that’s just a testament to how Black women are in this world. They’re so resilient.”
And it’s that type of love, the actor said, that has helped him become the man he is — an open and carefree man — and to grow as an actor, particularly while being surrounded my another cast of Black women while playing the love interest of Jada Pinkett-Smith in this summer’s “Girls Trip.”
“To me,” he said, “that’s acceptance that the world doesn’t often give a Black man.”
Check out more of Kofi Siriboe’s profile on Elle.com.
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