In the last few months, netizens have been discussing the ethnicity of a famous American football quarterback, C.J. Stroud, showing their curiosity about whether he is biracial or black.
On January 27, 2024, the Twitter page The Neighborhood Publicist claimed Stroud’s race to be black, tweeting, “CJ Stroud is Black. His parents are light-skinned. We need to talk about how we can no longer tell light-skinned Black folk from mixed ppl because they’ve all been lumped together.”
Four months later, another Twitter user commented on the ethnicity of C.J. Stroud, saying, “CJ is biracial. You can’t just look at his parents and stop there! 😂 You don’t get skin that light without a recent white or hispanic family member.”
Well, whatever the debate is going on, it’s crystal clear that he is black since both of his parent, Kimberly Stroud, and Coleridge Bernard Stroud III, belong to the black community.
Further, while talking about his struggles as a child, he opened up about his ethnicity, saying, “It’s typical stuff, but it’s hard. It’s hard. People read it and are like, ‘Oh, that’s a regular black kid’s story.’ But it’s not. It’s really hard….“
And the fact is that the hardship in the life of Stroud came up with some ongoing legal issues in the family.
CJ Stroud’s father was arrested, and his mother took care of all his siblings!
The now-renowned footballer C.J. Stroud was 13 years old when police took his father, Coleridge Bernard Stroud III, under the law, leaving his mother to fight through many hardships and raise him along with his siblings single-handedly.
C.J. Stroud has openly expressed his experiences and hardships related to his childhood in an interview on The Pivot podcast, where he stated, “My life has been like a roller coaster. It’s been up and down. I’ve been through hell and back. I’ve been through so much in my life. I had to grow up early. I had to grow up really fast.”
To fully know what black men usually encounter in society, this quote helps to sketch the emotional battles he had to go through at a young age.
Given his past experiences, he got a motivativation to become an advocate for criminal justice reform and to support people who faced many struggles similar to those of his family.
During an interview with Fox News, he stated, “Our criminal justice system isn’t right, and it’s something that I need to probably be a little more vocal about, because what he’s going through is not right.”
Additional Information
- Chosen second overall in the 2023 NFL Draft, C.J. Stroud signed a fully guaranteed four-year contract with the Texans worth $36,279,243, including a $23,384,904 signing bonus and an annual salary of over $9 million.
- C.J. Stroud has achieved 16 wins in his career, highlighting his impressive performance and leadership.
- The QB was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy in both 2021 and 2022 and won the Offensive Rookie of the Year Award in 2023.
