Adrienne Banfield Norris had to express how she felt about having Olivia Jade Giannulli on “Red Table Talk.”
We all have seen Norris appear on the Facebook Watch series with her daughter and granddaughter, Jada Pinkett Smith and Willow Smith.
During Tuesday’s episode that featured Giannulli, a social media influencer and daughter of actress Lori Loughlin and designer Mossimo Giannulli, to discuss the admissions scandal that resulted in her parents being sent to prison.
Pinkett Smith said she, her mother, and her daughter “all had very different feelings about it,” before Olivia Jade even appeared at the table.
Norris chimed in, “I fought it tooth and nail.” She said, “I just found it really ironic that she chose three Black women to reach out to for her redemption story.” She added, “I feel like here we are, a white woman coming to Black women for support when we don’t get the same from them. It’s bothersome to me on so many levels.”
She said, “Her being here is the epitome of white privilege to me.”
Earlier this year, Jade’s parents admitted to paying $500,000 to aid their two daughters in getting admitted to the University of Southern California. The couple was later arrested and pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges.
The 21-year-old came on “Red Table Talk” to break her silence about what happened.
Smith-Pinkett asked her mother to share with Jade her feelings about the appearance.
“I think for me it’s like there is so much violent dehumanization that the Black community has to go through on a daily basis,” Banfield Norris said. “There is so much devastation, particularly this year, 2020 with the pandemic, and everything brought to the table about how there is so much inequality and inequity, that when you come to the table with something like this, it’s like, ‘Child, please.'”
Jade understood, and Banfield Norris said she was “glad because what I am hearing from you is that there’s an interest and a desire to learn and figure out where you fit into the world and what your role is to make a difference.”
Jade said, “I didn’t come on here to like try and win people over and say, ‘I really need people to like me.” She added, “I just want to apologize for contributing to these social inequalities even though I didn’t realize it at the time.”
