Sandra Bullock details challenges of raising two Black children as a white woman

Sandra Bullock loves her children, Laila and Louis, so much that she plans to move to whatever city they choose to attend college in, she joked (or is she joking?) with Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris in the newest episode of Red Table Talk. That doesn't mean she's unaware of the specific challenges they will face because they have her as a mother.

"As a white parent who loves her children more than life itself, I'm scared of everything," Bullock said. "I know I'm laying all kinds of existential anxiety on them. I have to think about what they're going to experience leaving the home. They're gonna have my fear, but how can I make sure that my anxiety is accurate, protective?"

The Oscar-winning actress continued: 

"With Lou being a young Black man, at one point, sweet, funny Lou is gonna be a young man, and the minute he leaves my home, I can't follow him everywhere. I will try. I'm joking, but I'm not. I don't know what I will do, but I pray—I pray, I pray—that I've done a good enough job, scared them sufficiently. I've been schooling Lou since he was six years old and he popped that hoodie on his head. I let him see everything. I let him process it. He knows how the world works. He knows how cruel it is, he knows how unfair it is, and now Laila is knowing it. ... I let them teach me and tell me what they need to know. I thought I was educated and woke. I thought I had it all. And guess what? I wasn't."

Pinkett Smith then asked whether Bullock has been questioned over deciding to adopt two Black children. The 57-year-old clarified that she hasn't been judged to her face, but that doesn't mean she has been immune to any criticism.

"You get the racism," Bullock said. "There's been, sure, a lot of it. But guess what? Your sickness is not my problem."

Banfield-Norris then jumped in about Bullock's use of the word "sickness" and pointed out that she once held the belief that "it is better for a Black child to be raised in a Black home," but her opinion has changed over time.

"I know it's hard for people to look at a white woman, going, 'I just have a hard time getting past that,'" Bullock conceded.

She later added, "To say that I wish our skins matched, sometimes I do because then it would easier on how people approach us."

"It's the mother-child dynamic," Willow Smith interjected. "We don't have to put a color on [it]."

"And maybe one day that will go away," Bullock posited. "Maybe one day we will be able to see with different eyes."

Bullock first adopted her son, Louis, in early 2010 when he was an infant. She then adopted her daughter, Laila, as a three-year-old out of Louisiana's foster care system in late 2015. She has been with her partner, Bryan Randall, for six years.