It was reported yesterday that Jamie Foxx’s daughter, Corinne Foxx, got engaged to her partner Joe Hooten, who she’s been dating since 2019. But the celebratory announcement was met with a swath of racist reactions from online trolls who had unkind things to say about the fact that Corinne’s fiancé is white.

 

Comment sections, particularly on urban blogs where the news was shared, were filled with hateful comments suggesting that because of this interracial marriage, Jamie’s Black bloodline was on the verge of being “wiped out”:

Tweets about Corinne Foxx's engagement 
Tweets about Corinne Foxx's engagement 
 

And then there were remarks like these:

Tweets about Corinne Foxx's engagement 

Typically, you expect this kind of hate on places like The Shade Room and Hollywood Unlocked, where the comment sections tend to be especially unhinged – and even when things are said in jest, people can be very mean and take their jokes too far. But in this case, some of the trolls actually went directly to Corinne’s page to make comments, so heinous, that she limited people’s ability to leave remarks at all. The comment section were filled with things like:

“Like father like daughter. Gotta love it lol 😂”

 

Recently, conversations on social media have contributed to an even more hostile environment for multi-ethnic people. Each year, I notice a spike in divisive conversations and language, particularly around holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. So earlier in December, when a widely-viewed tweet tried to argue a point by looking to the biracial kids of celebrities like Drake, Halle Berry, Tamera Mowry and Megan Markle went viral, garnering more than three million views, it affected me really deeply.

 

The reactions to this person’s thoughts were divided. Some people agreed that without visibly Black features, you simply did not have the same experiences as other Black people, while others argued that features do not determine a person’s DNA, and that this conversation can make biracial people feel ostracized. It was even suggested at one point that people with fairer skin as a result of having one white and one Black parent should not be allowed to call themselves “light-skinned” anymore as it’s misleading and should instead refer to themselves as mixed or biracial. But with interracial marriage becoming increasingly more common as time goes on, is it fair to dictate how someone should identify themselves – which is already a gruelling and lifelong task for multi-ethnic people?

According to Pew research, back in 1967, in the U.S., only 3% of newlyweds were in an interracial marriage. By 1980, that number doubled to 7%. And by 2015, that number went up to 17%. 11 million people reported having a spouse that had a different nationality.

While the rate of Black newlyweds with a spouse of a different race or ethnicity has surged from 5% in 1980 to more than 18% in 2015, whereas white newlyweds with a spouse of a different race has only increased from 4% up to 11%, Asian and Latine people are actually the most likely to have a spouse of a different race or ethnicity.

 

Why, then, does so much of the conversation about interracial dating fall strictly on couples that feature a Black and white person? Why is it that when men like Joshua Jackson date women like Jodie Turner-Smith or Lupita Nyong’o, he’s lauded for it, but when Black men date white women, they, the woman, and their child risk facing a lot of backlash?

A few years ago, Southern Charm star Kathryn Dennis, known for being a direct descendant of slave owners in Charleston, South Carolina, and for sending racist, anti-Black messages back in 2020, began dating a Black athlete on the show. I and so many others were incredibly confused, given her history, and wondered if she was just using this to pull a “I’m not racist, my best friend is Black!” kind of move. She wouldn’t be the first one to do it. As easy as it would be to understand a bit of backlash in that case, Corinne’s case is entirely different. 

Corinne’s mom, Connie Kline, has laid pretty low since her short relationship with Jamie nearly 30 years ago. She hasn’t been caught up in any scandals and there aren’t any records of her being racist or problematic. So why all the hatred towards her and her daughter?

Typically, these are all questions I’ve had to ask myself and conversations I’ve had to navigate on my own, with very little understanding and grace given to my unique and nuanced experience of being biracial, something really only understood by other mixed people. So realizing that not only did Corinne’s fame, not her own and not her dad’s, fail to protect her from this kind of bigotry, but actually made her an even bigger target for it has left me feeling very visible, but simultaneously upset for her not being able to properly celebrate a huge milestone because it’s been clouded by trolls on the internet.

 

In the cases of who you love and how you look, you really don’t have a ton of control over either. Corinne happened to be born to a woman who was white, and she happened to fall in love with a man who is white. To see both of these things being so hotly debated on social media is exhausting, but also gives me great concern for the next generation of biracial kids – the ones pointed out in that photo by the Twitter user, and the ones to come.

I think about Ice-T and Coco Austin’s daughter, Chanel. I think about Justin Ervin and Ashley Graham’s kids. I think about Chris Ivery and Ellen Pompeo’s kids. And I think about Alexis Ohanian and Serena Williams’ daughters, and we all know Serena has had an especially difficult time with trolls, both on and off the tennis court. These are just some of so many more biracial kids that will – and won’t – grow up in the spotlight and be subjected to the same kind of abuse Corinne experienced over the weekend. 

It’s embarrassing and mortifying that Corinne felt the need to restrict comments on her post to protect her celebration – and more importantly, her peace. So as much as we all love celebrity gossip, and as harmless as it can be in most cases, we all have to remember that things can get ugly when lines are crossed and gossip turns into hateful, racist trolling.