Sterling K. Brown reveals why he feels
Sterling K. Brown is highlighting how race influences parenting.
on Monday “Armchair Expert” episode the Emmy winner told the host David Shepard that although he respects that the podcaster and his wife, actress Kristen Bell, have made the decision to keep your children’s faces off social mediaBrown has a totally different perspective.
Ari Perilstein via Getty Images
Bell and Shepard often include their children in social media posts, but always blur or block their faces to preserve their anonymity. Brown and his wife, actor Ryan Michelle Bathe, do not cover their children’s faces.
Brown and Bathe share two sons, Andrew, 14, and Amaré, 10. Shepard and Bell share two daughters, Lincoln, 12, and Delta, 11.
“I agree and understand exactly what you are saying.” Brown said of Shepard’s desire to give his children privacy.. “And it’s interesting because you have two girls. I have two boys. Your kids are obviously white. My kids are black. I feel like the more I put them on social media, the safer they are.”
The “This is Us” alum continued: “Any proximity that black kids might have to some kind of celebrity or access or whatever…”
“Status, leverage…” Shepard interjected.
“I’m trying to make sure they get home,” Brown said. “That’s really it.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” Shepard said in response.
Earlier in the episode, Shepard went into detail about why she keeps her daughters’ faces off social media, and interestingly, she also cited “safety” as the reason.
“Safety comes first” shepard said. “I don’t want you to know what my daughters are like… I don’t want them to be famous. I want them to be anonymous and make mistakes and not be in the tabloids because they were in a nightclub and everyone knows them. I want them to be able to screw up and be completely anonymous.”
Kevin Mazur via Getty Images
Bell also cited safety as a concern when explaining the parenting boundaries between her and Shepard. on Instagram in 2019“If we expose our children’s faces, there is a real threat that they will be harassed or that a stranger will approach them and know their name. It’s a safety issue.”
It is also worth noting that black children tend to be affected by adultification bias – or the perception that they are much older than they really are. He The American Psychological Association published research in 2014 which found that black children as young as 10 are often seen as less innocent than their white peers of the same age.
Shepard’s podcast co-host Monica Padman seemed particularly surprised by Brown’s revelation about featuring her children more prominently on social media.
“I’m going to be thinking about that for a long time,” Padman admitted. “Just that subtle difference between two people, who are very similar, in exactly the same situation in many ways, except in a very specific way, and how that manifests itself is so wild…”
“It’s heartbreaking, actually,” Shepard said.
Related