These pictures are a few days old but you know what? There’s no one out there who’s going to complain about seeing them even if you’re seeing them again, right? It’s Jodie Turner-Smith and Joshua Jackson. Seeing them is self-care for Kathleen. Every time they step out she texts me her fan fiction about them, in tears, good tears. And good tears are hard to come by these days.
Jodie and Joshua went out for a walk with the baby the other day. Do we know the name of their baby? The baby is a girl, that’s about all the information we have. And that’s all they’re willing to give us, like other celebrities who’ve been able to conceal the names of their children for as long as they possibly can. Evan Rachel Wood made a point of not revealing her son’s name for years. I think it’s out there now but she contained it for so long that even when it was finally made public, I don’t know that I retained it. And it’s my job to process celebrity headlines, so it means it works, if you want it to work.
I’m not going to pretend here that I’m not that asshole who isn’t curious about Jodie and Joshua’s baby name though. Of course I am. Both their names start with “J”. Will their baby’s name start with “J”? Have they hyphenated the last name(s)? Jodie’s last name is hyphenated, and I wonder if they keep that as a tradition. As Duana has been telling us over the years, names are identifiers in so many ways. Names carry meaning but also hopes. Names are expressive, they’re personal, sometimes they’re political. The names that are chosen for their children often tell you more about the parents. Jodie and Joshua are thoughtful and they’re artistic and they’re responsible with their platforms. I wonder how that’s reflected in the name of their child.
By the way, if you missed it, here’s what both of them posted in support of Black Lives Matter. Jodie educated her followers on the history of anti-Black racism and the KKK, an organisation that has NEVER been declared a terrorist group.
Joshua, as a white man, called out white privilege, and pressed on white people, who have created the problems, to feel the consequences of the problem, and then be part of the solution. Warning: these images are hard to watch. For Black people it’s a trigger because they’ve probably been on the receiving end of this violence. For the rest of us, it might be difficult viewing, but imagine actually being the target.
And then I hope it’s OK, since it shouldn’t diminish our concern about the most important issues, please note Joshua’s haircut. He has thick, wavy hair. But these are pandemic times. Instead of managing it, he’s just like, f-ck it, and it’s gone, much less to manage with a newborn.
