Regina King has shed more light on the precautions black mothers take while raising their sons.
During a remote appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday, the Oscar-winning star and host Jimmy Kimmel discussed how black parents speak to their children about interacting with police and other people in society.
“I think in most of black homes. it’s not just a conversation,” she told Kimmel. “It’s an ongoing conversation…it never stops.”
King, who is a mother of 24-year-old son Ian, continued, “You get to a place especially when your children are at an age where they are looked at as adults and the anger that they have—it just compounds every time something like this happens and another moment that’s telling them that they’re not worthy, they’re not valuable, their lives aren’t valuable once they walk outside the comfort of their homes.”
“The conversation shifts every time,” she elaborated, “because you have to find a way to support their feelings and make sure that you’re letting them know that you hear them and that you do mirror the same sentiment, but you don’t want them to do anything that’s going to put themselves in a situation that they may not come back home, they may not talk to you again.”
The Watchmen star recalled two times her conversations with her son particularly shifted.
“They got deeper once President [Barack] Obama was running for his first term. The campaigning that I was doing—your kids are seeing what you do, so the passion that I was having behind there, I think that’s what was making his comprehension with the conversations deeper,” she recalled to Kimmel.
“It really hit home when he was learning to drive,” she told him. “That’s when the conversation shifts again because you kind of have to make them very clear about what they’re supposed to do when they’re out there in that car by themselves and more than likely are gonna get pulled over just because you’re a young black man.”
Kimmel admitted he feels ignorant because he was not fully aware about how this kind of conversation is like a “rite of passage” between black parents and their children.
“It’s good that you know now,” she told him.
