John Legend & Cate Blanchett Discuss Speaking Out as a Celebrity

Cate Blanchett, John Legend and former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg take the cover of Town & Country‘s June/July 2017 Philanthropy issue.

Here’s what they had to share with the mag:

John, on racism in modern day society: “People feel defensive around the subject of racism, and they shut down, because they feel like they may say the wrong thing and you’ll think less of them. But we have to deal with the fact that these issues have a real impact on people’s lives. There’s a real impact when they’re not getting called back after they’ve applied for a job because they have the wrong name. And there’s a real impact when a police officer assume a person to be more of a threat because of the color of the person’s skin. We are dealing with these things every day, and the only way we are going to fix them is if we confront them, listen to one another, and empathize with one another’s concerns. We can’t worry more about being accused of being racist than we do about actually fixing the racism problem.”

Cate, on being a celebrity who speaks out: “I feel an obligation to use my voice to speak up for those who are voiceless. It just so happens that my voice is able to reach a larger audience because of the fact that I have a public profile. If that were something that I thought was worthy of criticism or cynicism, then perhaps it would bother me that there are people out there who look to belittle or demonize those who are trying�”in some small way�”to help.”

John, on speaking out as a celeb: “Obviously, when you step out on anything that’s controversial, someone disagrees with you. And some people take that disagreement in stride and say, You know, I don’t agree with you, but I like your music, so I’ll still buy it, or, I’ll still come to your shows. Some people can’t separate the two and say, If I disagree with you politically, you’re not going to make money off of me. And that’s just the price that we have to be willing to pay… some of the greatest artists we’ve ever known have been willing to risk some social capital to try to improve the lives of other people.”

FYI: Cate is wearing Armani Privé on her cover.

For more, visit TownandCountryMag.com.