Laverne Cox, Rosario Dawson, Jane Fonda, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Gabrielle Giffords, and Edna Chavez team up to talk about their fight for human rights in an empowering “Women Who Dare” issue of Harper’s Bazaar.
Cox and Dawson discuss intersectional feminism in their joint chat, with Dawson stressing the importance of staying vigilant: “Now we’re so comfortable being able to say ‘LGBTQIA movement’ — wonderful. But that doesn’t mean that coalition is evenly represented, that the disparities between them doesn’t exist.
“We get so comfortable with the vernacular that we think we’re in a post-racial, post-sexism, post-whatever [world] and it’s like, no, we’re a far cry from it. That’s what’s so gorgeous looking at younger people. They’re really embodying the community and recognizing intersectionality.”
Cox adds of America’s reaction to current political policies, “[Separating families] is being normalized and we’re being desensitized. We are becoming adjusted to injustice and we should become maladjusted to injustice.
“We must have a historical perspective and so that we’re not repeating the same historical mistakes. We’re being colossally distracted, too, by the spectacle and the entertainment of it all. Forty-five, if nothing, is entertaining.
“And there’s a lot of things to be outraged about and to resist against… Trans people are under attack right now and there’s so much else going on that a lot of folks aren’t paying attention. But everybody’s under attack.”
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Fonda, who joins Khan-Cullors for a chat about the sobering realities of racism, also talks about president Trump.
The actress admits, “One of the gifts that POTUS has given us is things are so blatant and bad that things that were underground before, at least for white people, have come to the surface now.
“It’s like, oh my God, I now understand that we can’t really be a full democratic country, a healthy country, as long as we have the legacy of slavery and race. We can’t, and I’m not sure that it would’ve hit me before November 2016. Isn’t it awful to say, I’m grateful for the lesson.”
The interview then sees Giffords and Chavez talk about refusing to be silenced on gun control, insisting that social media can be used to bring a sense of “nationwide community and action” that wasn’t necessarily present before.
Giffords tells the mag, “The students who have held rallies, walked out of their schools, and marched into the streets are blazing a trail that prior generations of gun safety activists could not have imagined.
“Your energy and determination are inspiring to my generation. Using tools like social media to speak truth to power in real time creates a sense of nationwide community and action that my generation has never seen before.”
Read more here.
