A couple years back Ellen Pompeo came under fire for using a black fist emoji in one of her tweets. The tweet was sent after the Grey's Anatomy actress slammed A&E for a trailer on a KKK documentary and after telling the network to pull the show, she responded with the emoji. The Twitterverse responded to her with flack on culture appreciation and labeled her a "white b*tch."
Ellen is now the latest guest to sit at Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk where she discussed the controversy and explained her actions in full.
"[...]I don't care in what light that show is, the trailer that I saw was provocative and it was sensationalizing the KKK," Ellen explained to Jada, as seen in the clip below. "If you're going to give those dudes money for burning crosses or whatever the f**k they do, that's not okay for me, for A&E. [The network] walked it back, said we're sorry, we're pulling it. So I was like, black fist emoji, black power."
She added: "I'm not appropriating culture. I'm just joining the fight. If you call me a white b*tch then isn't that judging me on the color of my skin? Why can't I help a victory for black people because I'm white?"
Watch the clip below and catch the full episode on Monday, December 10th.