During an interview with Parents magazine, the 'Cocoa Butter Kisses' rapper also talks about how he has better understood racism amid the Black Lives Matter movement.
- Aug 5, 2020
AceShowbiz - Chance the Rapper is instilling the motto "black is beautiful" in his eldest daughter. As he weighed in on parents' role amid the ongoing unrest across the country caused by the racial injustice, the "No Problem" rapper admitted that he sees the Black Lives Matter movement as an opportunity to encourage 4-year-old Kensli to be proud of being black.
In the September issue of Parents Magazine, the 27-year-old Grammy winner was asked how he and his wife taught their young daughters about the current racial divide. "Mainly, we've been teaching Kensli to love herself, to understand that her opinion is important, to understand that Black is beautiful and that Black power is her superpower," he responded. "Marli, I've just been trying to teach her how to walk."
Having similar parenting outlook as Chance was his wife, Kirsten Corley. In a new video of Parents' "Raising the Future" series, she stated, "I honestly feel like it starts at home. Racism is born at home. If their parents or other people are talking about people based on their skin color, it makes them have that kind of disposition towards people of color. Kids need to be taught to love people and not that they don’t see their color, but just love them in spite of it all and just be kind of everyone."
Asked what is being asked from today's parents, Chance told Parents, "Well, I'm a man of faith. So I feel a lot of things that happen may not be predestined, but I believe that God has control." He elaborated, "We're facing the coronavirus pandemic, where everybody has lost the assistance not only of grandparents and friends and family but also of the education system. Parents are put in this weird position where we've had to become teachers, along with being providers and caretakers. You become the main source of information for your child."
When it came to the Black Lives Matter movement, Chance opened up, "I think freedom, or even just the lack of oppression and racism, starts with recognizing the humanity in others. And I think we're kind of indoctrinated to look at people who aren't in our same tier of social hierarchy as 'other.' " He added, "This time is calling into question everyone's morality and everybody's sense of complicity and the oppression of people at large."
The father of two further claimed to have understood racism better after "realizing that people can adhere to racist systems and benefit from them without necessarily consciously doing so." He continued, "And my understanding of that came from my being able to see how I could be complicit in patriarchy and sexism."
"When there are protests, they're mostly for Black men. Statistics show that Black women are also brutalized at an extremely high rate or, in some cases, killed by racist police officers. So I think we're starting to address many issues: racism, patriarchy, capitalism, colorism," he additionally stated. "Until we can recognize the stem of each problem and how we all work within the system, we can't actually make it better."
