Jodie Turner-Smith says she and husband Joshua Jackson won’t raise kids in America
The 'Queen and Slim' actress says the racism in America made her reconsider raising a child in the states, possibly choosing Canada instead
Queen & Slim star Jodie Turner-Smith and husband, Joshua Jackson, are currently deciding where to lay down roots in preparation of their first child, but they have already ruled out the United States.
“The racial dynamics over here are fraught. White supremacy is overt. It’s the reason I don’t want to raise my kids here,” the British-born Turner-Smith, 33, told the Sunday Times. “I don’t want my kids to grow up doing active shooter drills at school.”
Her home country also doesn’t fare much better.
“England has gone off the rails, so I was thinking maybe Canada,” she told The Times. Jackson, 41, was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, so that nation could be more than a possibility.
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In December, Turner-Smith and Jackson, who starred on Dawson’s Creek, reportedly got married four months after picking up a marriage license. But Turner-Smith wouldn’t confirm the marriage to The Times.
“I haven’t said to anybody, ‘Yeah, we got married,’” she said. “People are assuming whatever they want, but when people tell me ‘Congratulations,’ I say ‘Thank you.’”
Turner-Smith, who was reared in Peterborough, England, also spoke about her experience in the U.S. when her Jamaican parents moved her and her siblings to Gaithersburg, Md.
“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,” Turner-Smith told The Times.
Turner-Smith said she used to practice trying to talk “Black” to fit in. “(I) 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 said, noting she still experiences prejudices in America because of her skin color.
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“There was this wave of people who were upset that I was possibly married to a white man,” Turner-Smith said. “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.”
But certainly nothing has dampened her love for Jackson. “We are obsessed with each other,” Turner-Smith told The Times.
