Both Will Smith and Jada Smith know what it’s like to be the center of the attention of media and the Internet and not in a good way, either. Whether it is Will Smith slapping Chris Rock to protect his wife’s honor or the scandal around the two having an open marriage, the couple has seen a lot of downs.
One thing about Jada Pinkett Smith is that she is not afraid to be vocal, a lot of which is through her Facebook series titled Red Table Talk. Mental health, addiction, divorce, and so on are just a few topics she has discussions about with her mother and her daughter. In one such episode, the world saw them opening up about the racism they felt through the years and how it affected Jada Pinkett Smith’s view of white women.
Jada Smith’s Bias Against White Women
During an episode of Red Table Talk, Jada Pinkett Smith’s mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, talked about the racism encountered by her as she was growing up. From not getting to go into certain places in her own neighborhood to hearing racial stereotypes from her boss, things had been pretty hard for her. Pinkett Smith also recalled the time when a couple of cops decided to throw racial slurs at her.
Following the racism she felt in her early years, Banfield-Norris found it difficult to be interested in having relationships with white people, which she regrets. Pinkett Smith also addressed the bias that she has against white women with blonde hair, mostly because of the bullying she was subjected to in school.
“I have to admit I’m guilty to that to a certain degree because I do have my own biases, specifically to blonde women. Blonde hair on white women just triggers me. I’ve had to catch myself.”
She was then asked by her mother if she had a specific incident that made her feel that way. To that she replied,
“Absolutely. All throughout my childhood. I do remember experiencing being teased by white women in regards to my hair, how I looked, feeling belittled. And I was going to do an interview with this blonde woman and I thought twice about it. I thought, ‘I don’t know if I want to do that.’ That was my first instinct because of how she looked!”
Pinkett Smith then addressed that she realized her own hypocrisy as she stated that her past didn’t give her the right to put all blonde women in the same category. She talked about how it was no different than calling all black men dangerous after being robbed by one.
Jada Pinkett Smith Discusses European Beauty Standards
Initiated by Banfield-Norris, the trio then went on to talk about the European beauty standards and how black women were “brainwashed into only accepting the European idea of what beauty is.” She then stated that there was nothing black women could truly call their own thanks to tanning beds and lip injections and called out the fact that they were once ridiculed for it.
“Now, we can’t have anything to ourselves that we can call our own. They have tanning booths. Now they’re trying to get brown. They’re putting injections into their lips. They’re putting injections into their behinds. We were ridiculed for that for years.”
This led to Pinkett Smith stating that that’s one of the reasons why she isn’t a feminist, but a womanist. She stated that the feminist movement still focuses on middle-class white women. In the end, Pinkett Smith advised her fans to remember that everyone is human and that self-evaluation is necessary for the change that starts from within.
You can catch the discussion on Red Table Talk’s Facebook page
Source: Red Table Talk
