During a sit down on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook series Red Table Talk, Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock went into detail about the challenges she faces as a white mother raising Black children.
Bullock adopted two Black children, son Louis, 11, and daughter Laila, 9.
During the conversation, she revealed that she wished her skin tone “matched” that of her children, BuzzFeed reports.
“To say that I wished our skins matched … sometimes I do,” Bullock said. “Because then it would be easier on how people approached us.”
“I have the same feelings as a woman with brown skin, and it being her babies. Or a white woman with white babies,” she continued.
Co-host Willow Smith added her commentary, saying that skin color isn’t powerful enough to dictate the parenting bond between children and those who raise them.
“It’s the mother-child dynamic. There is no color,” Bullock responded.
The actress expressed a level of hope to her doubts, adding, “Maybe one day that will go away. Maybe one day we will be able to see with different eyes.”
On Wednesday, Bullock sat with Today's Hoda Kotb and mentioned how motherhood raises some concerns for her. The 57-year-old said she previously wondered how her race would culturally impact and cultivate her children’s upbringing.
“That was on my mind when they were very, very, very young — is that, will they love me less because I don't represent their culture?" she said.
Bullock also shared with Kotb how she was handling her children’s safety amid the surge of Black women and men being killed at the hands of law enforcement simply for their skin color.
The actress said that she thinks about the scenarios “24/7.”
“As a parent of a Black child you have to,” she added. “You know, as a white woman, I didn't have to think about that until the day I fell in love like I did. You realize that there is a whole universe that you have to educate yourself to.”
As Blavity previously reported, Sex and the City actress Kristin Davis also sat down with the Red Table Talk hosts and spoke about being a white mother to Black children.
"I do feel like the white savior thing is a problem and it's real, so I don't want to say that that's just a myth," Davis said. "It's not really what I come across so much … because are you saying then, 'Don't try to do anything good because your skin is white?' Because that's not going to work out."
Kotb praised Bullock for being influential when she began her process of adopting children at a later age in life.