Yara Shahidi on activism and reclaiming Black joy through mentorship, community
Yara Shahidi isn't giving up hope or joy.
In an interview for the August digital issue of ELLE magazine, the actress, 20, talked about activism, reclaiming Black joy and reconstructing what the future looks like.
Shahidi explained that she was raised with the idea of being of "service to the world around you," but feels that there is "this kind of double-edged sword of wanting people to speak up and then (thinking that they’re) not speaking up the right way."
She continued, "It’s something that I’m personally even conflicted about. In this moment, for example, I think a lot of the work that I’m hoping to do is about pointing people toward the organizers and the people on the front lines of this movement, because they have the most prescient, most real, most necessary voices. The greatest skill about having a platform, I think, is handing over the mic.”
Shahidi, best known for her role in the ABC sitcom "Black-ish" and the Freeform spin-off series "Grown-ish," also said that mentorship comes to mind when thinking about the reclamation of Black joy.
"When I think of fashion, for example, I’m grateful to be in a community. My stylist, Jason Bolden, has always prioritized what it means to support Black people in the fashion industry. We’ve consistently been in conversations about how to use this space for something that’s powerful," she said. "Who are we bringing into these moments? Who can we open doors for? Who can we be in community with?"
She continued, "Joy comes from being able to consistently embrace our sense of community and revel in our culture year-round. We must believe that there is something that we’re fighting for in order to keep fighting.”
Shadidi has been vocal about her activism on social media, sharing the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, urging people to vote and speaking up about the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Oluwatoyin Salau and more.
She's also collaborated with others in order to bring light to issues that intersect with race.
In May, she had a conversation with fellow actress Taraji P. Henson about mental health care in Black communities, and in June, she had a conversation with NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill, where they discussed "actions required to reimagine a justice system without pervasive white supremacy."
In terms of moving forward, Shahidi suggested that imagination is important.
"Society tries to take away our ability to imagine, it takes away our ability to participate in a larger collective and nuanced Black imaginary world, because we are consistently burdened with the task of dealing with our reality," she said. "There’s very little space to participate in something that is unknown, because there’s so much to handle in our present. We need this imagination and creative force to completely reconstruct our reality. To not only destroy, but to completely reconstruct what the future looks like.”
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Yara Shahidi on activism and reclaiming Black joy in Elle interview
