Last week, when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, it was a loud, ugly, and terrifying statement about our national character. Trump stoked the flames of white resentment and stood on the backs of vulnerable minority communities to ascend to the highest office in the world. Last Thursday, Oscar-winning actress actress Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games, Joy) penned an op-ed in Broadly encouraging Americans to turn their rage into positive change.
In her op-ed entitled “Don’t Be Afraid, Be Loud,” Lawrence believes the election revealed a stark reality where only the rights of white men are safe. “It doesn’t matter how hard you work or how qualified you are, at the end of the day, if you’re not a man? Is that what we just learned?” Lawrence wrote. “This country was founded on immigration and today the only people that feel safe, that their rights are recognized and respected are white men.”
Even though Clinton was clearly the most qualified candidate, she still lost in the Electoral College to Trump, a political newcomer. So, for Lawrence, the election was a glaring example of sexism. “If you’re a woman and you’re worried that no matter how hard you work or how much you learn, there will always be a glass ceiling, then I don’t really know what to say,” Lawrence wrote. But she wants women to accept reality and work hard in spite of it. “We will keep educating ourselves and working twice as hard as the man next to us because we know now that it is not fair. It is not fair in the workplace, so you make it impossible to fail,” Lawrence wrote. “And like Hillary, it might not work.”
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Although the election was a huge blow to millions of people, Lawrence believes dejected Americans can harness their collective outrage to affect greater social change. “Do not let this defeat you – let this enrage you! Let it motivate you! Let this be the fire you didn’t have before,” Lawrence wrote. “If you are an immigrant, if you are a person of color, if you are LGBTQ+, if you are a woman – don’t be afraid, be loud!”
Read Lawrence’s full editorial at Broadly.
