Mariah Carey says that her awareness of racism was awoken at a very young age. In a chat with
Watch What Happens Live host Andy Cohen the singer and newly minted autobiography author (her book,
The Meaning of Mariah Carey, dropped late last month) Carey revealed that growing up as a biracial child meant that she learned about racism early in life. Sadly, says the mother of two, her kids have had to go through the same experience despite the fact that decades of so-called progress have gone by. Mariah told Cohen that her nine-year-old son, Moroccan, was recently confronted by a white supremacist he’d previously considered a pal.
“Rocky just got bullied the other day by a white supremacist person that he thought was his friend,” said Carey, “It’s, like, insane. So this is the world we live in.”[video_embed id='2050861']RELATED: Mariah Carey has the best response to being called ‘high-maintenance’[/video_embed]As a parent of two young kids however (Moroccan and Monroe are the singer’s twins with ex Nick Cannon), Carey says she’s been trying to educate her children about racism before they have to confront it. That means sharing her own stories about racism — the same ones she documents in her new book. “They can then have a greater understanding and ultimately, a greater reservoir with which to deal with the situation itself. [Being biracial] has been a struggle for me since I was aware that there was such a thing as race,” she said. “The only reason I was aware early was because it became a subject of humiliation for me as a child.”Carey then went on to share two stories from her own childhood: “I drew a picture of my family because that was the assignment [in school] and got traumatized by the student teachers who thought I used the wrong crayon because I drew my father with a brown crayon,” she said, referencing her father, Alfred Carey. “My father was this gorgeous, tall, man that looked like a movie star to me. It changes your perspective and it twists it. I really feel like it’s been a lifelong battle, a struggle,” she admitted after recounting another story in which a school friend “burst into tears” upon seeing her Black father (presumably, the child had been expecting to see a white man).But it's Carey’s story about her son being bullied that’s most disturbing — especially when you consider that it’s 2020 and this is the privileged child of two extremely wealthy parents. What is it like for a kid whose mother can’t send him or her to a new school or call out the bully on TV?[video_embed id='2049925']BEFORE YOU GO: 'Horse girl' from Alberta can gallop and jump just like a horse[/video_embed]
