Kristin Davis has a five-year-old adopted black daughter, Gemma, and after Donald Trump’s election, she admits to being terrified for her child.
“I am white. I have lived in white privilege. I thought I knew before adopting my daughter that I was in white privilege, that I understood what that meant,” Davis said while speaking at The Greene Space in New York City. “But until you actually have a child, which is like your heart being outside you, and that heart happens to be in a brown body, and you have people who are actively working against your child, it’s hard. It fills me with terror.”
A photo posted by iamkristindavis (@iamkristindavis) on
She then went on to describe her feeling of panic following the election results.
“My initial thoughts on Wednesday morning was that I wanted to move to the woods and learn to shoot a gun,” Davis said. “It makes no sense. I’m fully aware. I’m 100 percent aware that it literally makes no sense … the fear of what is happening and how am I going to make sure that no one hurts my child, even in a subtle way, which was already a fear I had, obviously, but it just became so, so heightened.”
But, she said, she will keep working hard to make sure her daughter knows that she is loved and wanted. “I have to tell her, ‘Your curls are beautiful, your black skin is beautiful,’” she said. “’You’re beautiful. You’re powerful. You’re a goddess’ … because she needs to know this.”