Angelina Jolie opened up about her 'extraordinary' daughter Zahara Jolie-Pitt in a new interview, saying how 'in awe' she is of the teenager's connection to her African roots.
Angelina Jolie couldn’t be prouder of her daughter. The actress and activist brought up her 15-year-old, Zahara Jolie-Pitt, during a discussion about the power of African voices and Black Lives Matter with Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate. Angelina adopted Zahara from Ethiopia in 2005, when she was just six months old. While speaking with Vanessa for their TIME 100 Talk, Angelina questioned how American schools cover Black history.
“One of the things that’s also been interesting is the education,” Angelina mused when the conversation turned to Black Lives Matter. “I don’t know about the schools in Uganda, but I know in the United States there’s a very big question particularly about the — my daughter is from Ethiopia, one of my children. And I have learned so much from her. She is my family, but she is an extraordinary African woman.”
Angelina continued to gush about her incredible daughter. “Her connection to her country, her continent, is very — it’s her own and it’s something I only stand back in awe of,” she said. “But what I see in, for example, American history books and how limited they are… they start teaching people who are Black about their lives through the Civil Rights movement, which is such a horrible place to begin.”
The Maleficent star opened up about her daughter in a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar, which occurred amidst the widespread protests against police brutality in the United States. Angelina admitted that she’s scared for her daughter growing up as a Black woman in America. “There is racism and discrimination in America. A system that protects me but might not protect my daughter – or any other man, woman, or child in our country based on skin color – is intolerable,” she said.
“We need to progress beyond sympathy and good intentions to laws and policies that actually address structural racism and impunity,” she continued. “Ending abuses in policing is just the start. It goes far beyond that, to all aspects of society, from our education system to our politics.”
