British-Jamaican model and actress, Jodie Turner-Smith, knows where she wants to raise her kids – and she’s most certain it won’t be the United States of America.
Speaking to the Sunday Times (according to People), the Queen & Slim star, who is expecting a baby with her partner, Joshua Jackson, revealed the current state of America with issues pertaining to race doesn’t make it a conducive place to raise her children.
“The racial dynamics over here are fraught. White supremacy is overt. It’s the reason I don’t want to raise my kids here,” she said. “I don’t want my kids to grow up doing active shooter drills at school.”
Born in Peterborough, England, to Jamaican parents, the 33-year-old also doesn’t see her home country as better alternative.
“England has gone off the rails, so I was thinking maybe Canada,” she said. Her 41-year-old partner was born in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Albeit opening up about where she would prefer raising her kids, she remained coy when the rumor of her tying the knot with Jackson in December was brought up.
“I haven’t said to anybody, ‘Yeah, we got married’, ” she told the Times. “People are assuming whatever they want, but when people tell me ‘Congratulations’, I say ‘Thank you’. ”
Turner-Smith moved to the United States with her mother and siblings after her parents divorced. Talking about settling in, she admitted it was the complete opposite of what she was expecting.
“So I was really excited when I came to America about meeting black people. But it was a huge culture shock, because I was rejected by the black community. They were like, ‘You talk like a white girl.’ People would call me an Oreo. All I wanted was acceptance,” she revealed.
To fit in, she said she “would practice in the mirror, talking in a way that I thought was like black American: cutting you down with my words in five seconds if you came for me.”
She also spoke extensively about discrimination she has had to face because of her skin color and relationship with Jackson.
“There was this wave of people who were upset that I was possibly married to a white man,” she told the Times. “In America interracial dating or marriage is not something that is as accepted. Certain people feel strongly against it, in both communities. I felt it from the black community. It is so complicated. I don’t want to give it too much energy. The horrific things that people were saying, it makes you. … I’m learning there are certain things I have to really keep for myself.”
She is, however, unperturbed thanks to the love they have for each other.
“We are obsessed with each other,” she said.
