During a recent interview with Trevor Noah to The Daily Show, Black Panther star Danai Gurira opened up about the importance of having difficult conversations about race with white friends. Danai explained that the socialization is the best approach to take, and the only way to do this effectively is to get the support of all the people to “dismantle the problem from both sides.” He added that the lack of these important conversations places the blame on the people instead of in the system and distracting from the larger issue at hand.
“The key thing that I want to learn is about the collaboration, the cooperation that we have in the world. No one is safe until everybody is safe.”
“I think a lot of Black people are like, ‘Work on yourself, because it is always a burden on Black people to explain and say, ‘This is what I have to spend. This is what I have experience.” And to have to relive and rehash things for which the white people can come on board and understand that there is a problem and wanted to do a inverse relationship between the situation there, where in reality I was getting questions about it and saying, ‘take this job and we’re going to see guys put their work in this area.” That was a kind of shift,” he said. “It’s not about condemnation — that is not the point. Not going to get us to a place where we want to go, which is to heal and transform.”
In working towards transformation, the Walking Dead the star is using her platform to call attention We love Our Girls, an organization that she founded to call attention to the injustices that girls and women all over the world. Now more than ever, there is an opportunity for change and a space for these women, for their voices to be heard, that is the reason why the Danai makes it a priority to highlight the cause.
“The love of women and girls in need, if we have received, that comes with respect, which comes with care, that comes with the equity, we would be much further along and we would see a lot less problems and injustices faced by women,” Danai said. “In these current times, it feels even more relevant that actually keep me alive and that I’m very connected with what is happening and the voices that should be heard at this time. It is a time when we are in that we are waiting for is truly a transformation time.”
Danai also insisted that one of the big steps that we can take as a society is to cooperate and listen to each other. “The key thing that I want to learn is about the collaboration, the cooperation that we have in the world. No one is safe until everybody is safe.” View Danai’s full interview with Trevor above.
