Justin Timberlake Opens Up About Teaching Son, 5, 'the Truth' About Racism

Encouraging education. Justin Timberlake described the conversations he’s having with his and Jessica Biel’s 5-year-old son, Silas, about racism.

“Boys grow up to be fathers,” the singer, 39, captioned a Sunday, June 21, Father’s Day slideshow via Instagram. “I think about that a lot these days. We try to teach our son to love and to respect everyone — we teach him that all people are all created equal, and that no one should be treated differently because of the color of their skin. We teach him this because one day, he will go on to teach his kids the same. It’s a cycle.”

The Grammy winner and the actress, 38, are working to “undo generations of discrimination that [has] plagued [the] system and communities across the country,” Timberlake went on to write. “I’m reminded today that the first lessons start at home. I’m grateful for both of my dads and my mother for teaching me those lessons from the beginning. And for listening to me when I had something to say that they hadn’t learned.”

The Tenessee native wants the same sense of “humility” for his own son, who has been “teaching [him] right back.”

Timberlake concluded, “While we owe our sons and daughters these lessons in the places where the doors close at night, I hope you are as inspired as I am to make them THE TRUTH in the places that same door opens every morning and we send them out to discover. There’s more to do. And we are built for it. After all, we are the Dads.”

The “Cry Me a River” singer’s post came nearly one month after George Floyd was killed when police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into the Minneapolis resident’s neck for nearly nine minutes. He was 46. Since Floyd’s death, protests supporting the Black Lives Matter have erupted worldwide.

“Those of us who call ourselves allies need to do everything in our power to stand with the black community right NOW,” Timberlake wrote via Instagram at the time. “BLACK people are regularly being murdered unjustly by police. We have seen it. Over and over again. This has gone on in America for too long, and it’s NEVER been OK. We have to take action, we have to make noise.”