Interview
June 12, 2020 12:18PM EDT
As the adoptive mother of a young Black woman, Angelina Jolie is calling for the end of the systemic ‘racism’ in the U.S. She says it’s time for us to ‘make structural changes’ to protect the ‘vulnerable,’ like her daughter.
“I was fortunate years ago to travel with the UN to frontlines around the world and put into perspective what really matters,” Angelina Jolie, 45, said in a rare interview with Harper’s Bazaar, published on June 12. The interview comes a week after, amid all the peaceful Black Lives Matter protests, Angie donated $200,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. As the Maleficent actress says in the talk with Harper’s, the ongoing protests over George Floyd’s death hit home. “Having six children, I am reminded daily of what is most important. But after almost two decades of international work, this pandemic and this moment in America has made me rethink the needs and suffering within my own country.”
One of her main concerns is the future and safety of her daughter, 15-year-old Zahara Jolie-Pitt. In 2005, Angie adopted the six-month-old Zahara from an orphanage in Addis Abba, Ethiopia, and the systemic racism in America towards Black women and men hasn’t gone unnoticed by Angie. “There are more than 70 million people who have had to flee their homes worldwide because of war and persecution – and there is racism and discrimination in America. A system that protects me but might not protect my daughter – or any other man, woman, or child in our country based on skin color – is intolerable.”
Angie with her children Shiloh (left) and Zahara (right) (Shutterstock)
“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 sys
