Angelina Jolie has long been an advocate for change, marking decades of dedicated charity work with organisations such as the Afghanistan Relief Organisation and Amnesty International, even working with a Special Envoy of the High Commissioner for Refugees to bring attention to the challenges that refugees face around the world. In light of the current world climate, on top of a $1 million donation, the actress is also having proactive discussions with her children to discuss systematic racism and white privilege.
Speaking to Harpers Bazaar U.K. Jolie shared she sees the current protests as a positive, but admits to knowing that the process will have to involve major changes to laws and institutions.
“It feels like the world is waking up, and people are forcing a deeper reckoning within their societies,” Jolie told the publication. “It is time to make changes in our laws and our institutions — listening to those who have been most affected and whose voices have been excluded.”
She went on to say that as things stand, certain things protect her as a white woman but leave her daughter vulnerable, stating that fact as “intolerable.”
“A system that protects me but might not protect my daughter — or any other man, woman or child in our country based on skin colour — is intolerable,” she said. “We need to progress beyond sympathy and good intentions to laws and policies that actually address structural racism and impunity. Ending abuses in policing is just the start. It goes far beyond that, to all aspects of society, from our education system to our politics.”
As for the advice she’s teaching her six children, Jolie simply said: “To listen to those who are being oppressed and never assume to know.”
She even went on to explain what she’s found most uplifting during the pandemic.
“The way people are rising,” Jolie said. “Saying that they are tired with the excuses and half-measures, and showing solidarity with each other in the face of inadequate responses by those in power. It feels like the world is waking up, and people are forcing a deeper reckoning within their societies. It is time to make changes in our laws and our institutions – listening to those who have been most affected and whose voices have been excluded.”
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