Sex and the City star Kristin Davis has broken down as she recalled instances of racism faced by her adopted children.
The actress, who played Charlotte in the hit show, adopted her daughter Gemma in 2011 and a son last year.
Davis appeared on actress Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook chat show Red Table Talk, where she revealed the racist abuse her children had faced from an early age.
In an emotional interview, Davis said: “I was horrified, it’s hard to put into words really.”
Recalling instances where people said her daughter would become a “great basketball player”, the 54-year-old said: “How dare they limit my child and how dare they make that assumption and how can they just say it like that, so casual?
“I was like ‘Oh God, please, don’t let it be everybody’ but our country is built on this and it is institutionalised and that is what you come to realise as time goes on.”
Davis, who is a single mother, also recalled when one young white girl reserved a swing for another white girl, even though her daughter was waiting “patiently” for her turn.
“It lit a fire under me where I couldn’t be relaxed or casual [about racism],” she said.
“But I will never be black, no matter how hard I try… That is the truth, and we have to accept it. And therefore I will never be able to say to Gemma ‘I understand how you feel because this happened to me’.”
:: Listen to the Backstage podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spreaker
The actress discussed the concept of white privilege with Pinkett Smith’s mother Adrienne Banfield Norris, who asked what the adoption of her two children had taught her.
She said: “This is what I want to say, from a white person adopting [black children]: You absolutely do not fully understand. There’s no doubt.
“There’s no way you could, because you could understand you live in white privilege and that’s a theory but it’s one thing to be watching it [racism] happening to other people and another when it’s your child.
“And you haven’t personally been through it. It’s a big issue, it’s something I think about every day and every night.”
Davis added that her daughter had influenced her to adopt her son in 2018.
“She said ‘Mommy, I would really love a black little brother’. And I was like ‘I totally understand, baby’.
“And then one day, there he was. And I tell you, my daughter didn’t bat an eye. She was like ‘there he is’. So beautiful. And then she held him and fed him. She’s just the best big sister.”
