Leigh-Anne Pinnock: Talking about race with my family

Leigh-Anne – “So, I'm really close to my family - they’re like my rock. My mum is half-English and half-Bajan and my dad is half-English - half-Jamaican - we have my sisters Sian and Sairah and then I have my gorgeous fiancé Andre. Yeah – just sayin’”

“So, do you feel like as a parent like what's the age to teach your child about their race?”

Sairah – “As soon as they can speak, we think.”

Sian – “Yeah - I think it’s a sensitive subject. I feel like…”

Sairah – “We have different opinions… yeah you go first…’

Sian - “Yeah we have…me and Sairah we’re both parents and our kids are amazing, but our opinions are very different, see I'm of the opinion that I don't want my children to grow up and constantly have their life determined by colour - I don’t want them to see colour - and that doesn't mean I don't want them to learn about race, because they one hundred percent need to learn about their race and their roots and their culture, where they come from. One thing especially having Faith, I don't want her to every time she steps out that door - think that something’s going to happen to her because she's black.”

Sairah – “It's very important that we do have these conversations and I've always educated Kailum on things and I've always felt it's important for me to do it, because I don't want Kailum to ever not love himself and I do it so he loves himself. We obviously have grown up both being identified as mixed race, whereas we’re both raising children that are both seen as black. Obviously with these conversations about Faith, it's almost like we can't understand how she would feel because we are light skinned yeah, and it goes back to that idea of this being ‘what she should want’ not what she has… It's almost seen as a thing that should be more desired and that's so wrong. In my opinion I don't want someone to turn around and say to Kailum 'I don't see colour' because if you don't see colour you don't see him. I want you to identify Kailum as being a young black boy.”

Sian – “So have you, like have you guys ever been stopped and searched?”

Andre – “Yeah I did - loads when I was young…Not so much now.”

Sairah – “But we got stopped the other day…yeah I was really scared.”

Leigh-Anne – “I always feel scared when I see the police – that’s not alright is it?”

Sairah – “But then, there is a lot of injustice to black men and black women. I'm raising him to be such a successful young black man, I would hate for anyone to walk past him and have an idea of him being some sort of thug or criminal and I feel that the difference that black men face that white men will not face is, we are seen as suspects before anything else…”

Leigh-Anne – “It's almost like you cannot ignore this now, like you have to have those awkward conversations, you have to address this. I think because both my parents have had experiences - I think as much as they never told us that our race would hold us back - I feel like there was always a sense of, like, you should be proud of who you are, and I've always felt that. As much as this whole experience has affected me, being in the group and encountering racism, I've still been proud to be who I am.”