“I made a statement that my children fear police and it’s a real statement,” Cannon recently told “Access Hollywood”. “I try to teach fearlessness. I try to teach, you have a power within you that you need to fear nothing.”

“The Masked Singer” host shares daughter Monroe and son Moroccan, both 9, with ex-wife Mariah Carey and son Golden, 3, with ex-girlfriend Brittany Bell. The 39-year-old actor explained he’s taught them to keep their guard up around cops.

“When they see the energy of law enforcement, when, ‘uh oh, here comes the police,’ or that mindset of ‘stand up straight and don’t talk, keep your hands where they can see them,’ these are things that I’m talking to a 3-year-old about or a 9-year-olds about and they bring those questions to me.”

Cannon admitted that as a child, he wanted to become a policeman, but children today view things differently because of how black people are treated by police.

“They perpetuate fear, man,” he said. “It’s hurtful to have those conversations with your children but you want to protect them at the end of the day.”

He added, “It’s part of the culture. My parents had the same conversation with me. I’ve never called the police in my life because our family was afraid to call the police.”

Cannon, who went back to school to study criminology at Howard University, continued, “When we see the police in our neighborhood it’s never been a good experience and that’s why I say we got to rethink and reconstruct what law enforcement is, specifically in our communities,” he said.

Cannon has been taking part in protests following the killing of George Floyd by police.