Loose Women's Kelle Bryan has opened up about both her own and her son's experiences with racism, as the panel discussed the recent events surrounding the death of George Floyd.
Floyd – a black man – died in police custody when a white officer kneeled on his neck. His death has prompted a number of protests and demonstrations across the US and around the world, with the Black Lives Matter movement sparking an important conversation about institutional racism.
Reflecting on the current unrest, Kelle admitted to the panel that she has shown her children some footage of the protests taking place in the US.
"They found it... a struggle to understand," she explained, but insisted that the issue is just as "relevant in the UK".
Related: Riverdale star Cole Sprouse reveals he was arrested in Black Lives Matter protest
The Hollyoaks actress then shared a heartbreaking story about her son Regan's experience with racism, after another child told him that he couldn't play with a toy because of the colour of his skin.
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"Regan came home really upset and he was saying, 'Mummy, why would they say that?'" she said. "I've brought my children up to be quite colourless, colourblind, in terms of not judging anybody. So for Regan to come to me and be quite upset like that, I was like, 'Actually, I need to now deal with this differently.'
"I had raised them in that way, but actually the real world that they're living in isn't the same, unfortunately," she added, before clarifying: "He was told by another child, 'You can't play with this toy because you're brown.'"
As well as sharing her own experience of being called the N-word by strangers when she was pregnant on Loose Women, Kelle recently paid her own tribute to George Floyd on social media.
"My son is 8 years old and he is still growing up in this kind of world. I want to tell him, 'Don't worry son that's how things used to be'," she wrote on Instagram. "But it's not, [it's] how things are ......TODAY.
"I am hurting for every #mother who has brutally [and] unjustly lost her son. RIP."
Just yesterday (June 1), Kelle's fellow Loose Women panellist Judi Love talked about the racist abuse she's received, as well opening up about the conversations about race and prejudice that she's had to have with her son from a young age.
"As a black parent as well, having to have that conversation with my son at seven years old, and explain to him, 'You're a young black boy and you might be put into a situation where you're judged solely based on your skin' is heartbreaking," she said.
Loose Women airs weekdays at 12.30pm on ITV.
For more information on how you can support Black Lives Matter, please visit its official website or donate here. Readers can also donate to the UK anti-discrimination group Stand Up To Racism, and the Unite Families & Friends Campaign, which supports those affected by deaths in police, prison and psychiatric custody.
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