- Tina Knowles-Lawson recently spoke to Insider about her new show "Profiled: The Black Man."
- She explained that dangerous stereotypes about Black men have already impacted her teenage grandson.
Tina Knowles-Lawson recently opened up about the stereotypes that impact her family— particularly her teenage grandson.
The famous mom of two spoke to Insider last week about the "painful conversation" she regularly has with her eldest grandchild,
"It hurts me to my heart that I have to constantly say to him — teach him how to act, so to speak, just in certain situations — 'If you encounter the police, then do not make certain moves if you are in a car. Don't talk back. Make it home,'" she told Insider. "That's a painful conversation to have with my grandson."
"I don't want him to even be thinking about that," she continued. "He should just be thinking about being a teenager, but as a Black grandmother, I have to have that conversation all the time."
Knowles-Lawson explained that Black boys and men are perceived as "dangerous" by many people, including police officers, which is the focus of her new show "Profiled: The Black Man."
The four-part docuseries aims to portray Black men in a more accurate, positive light.
In the first episode, titled "Black Men Are Dangerous," Knowles-Lawson joins experts and activists to break down the history of that stereotype and its potentially fatal implications.
The episode cites a 2019 study from Rutgers University, which found that about 1 in 1,000 Black men and boys in the US can expect to die at the hands of police — 2.5 times more likely than white men and boys — and pays homage to recent victims like Eric Garner, George Floyd, and Tamir Rice, who was just 12 years old when he was shot and killed.
"They are going to be hit with those stereotypes. They're going to hear them, they're going to see them, and they're going to feel them," Knowles-Lawson said of her grandchildren. "So we have to educate them, even though it's not our doing. It's not our problem. It's the person who is putting that on us, who's projecting that on us."
Knowles-Lawson has another grandson, Beyoncé's 4-year-old son Sir, as well as two granddaughters: Beyoncé's eldest daughter Blue Ivy, 10, and Sir's twin sister Rumi.
She said that her family helped inspire her to become an executive producer of "Profiled" and "get the conversation rolling" about racial injustice — even though she finds it difficult to remain optimistic.
"Every day I wake up and read about another killing," she said. "I mean, it is so mind-boggling that every time I seem to have this hope, the next day is some other disaster."
"Hopefully people will look at this and not immediately see subhuman people," she said of the docuseries. "See that we are human, we are real, we are good people."
The second episode of "Profiled: The Black Man" will air on Saturday, February 19 on Discovery+ and OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network.