Kerry Washington has always been a prominent political advocate and has been involved in activism since her teenage years, but she was worried that her growing fame would cause her to give up her voice.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the 43-three-year-old actress said: “It’s scary when you’re in the public eye to go out there and say things and create change, because you’re so vulnerable. A lot of people don’t do this work; they don’t step in more deeply because they’re paralyzed with fear. Can I manage a foundation? Do I know everything I need to know to do this? To be guided by a fiscal sponsor who has a proven track record in the nonprofit space means I don’t have to give up my whole career in the arts or in production in order to do this work.”
Washington revealed one of the strangest moments she felt as an activist was the morning after Donald Trump was elected president, when Olivia Pope (the fictional crisis-management fixer she played “Scandal”) started trending on social media.
She said: “People wanted this imaginary character to fix their problems, and I felt like this was a moment of real disconnect because we’re living in a democracy; we’re the people who hold the power to unlock the change that’s most important, but we keep passing that power off to characters on television. I wanted to use my platform to remind people that they’re the fixers in their communities. They’re the change-makers and the problem-solvers in their lives, in their families, in their neighborhoods, in their school boards and in their states.”
But Washington believes it is not just celebrities who have the power to create change and she says it is more important than ever that people get involved.
She explained: “We’re living in a moment where people have forgotten how powerful they are. There are so many issues that matter right now: climate change, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, education, health care, poverty, racism. There’s so much that’s at stake, but all those issues can be impacted with democracy-building.”
