Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are joining scores of celebrities using their platform to advocate for systemic change in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. The couple also addressed some of how they have made mistakes in the past when it came to being racially sensitive.
In an instagram post on both of their accounts, Lively and Reynolds explained how they were previously “uninformed about how deeply rooted systemic racism is” and how they would promise to do better in the future:
“We’ve been teaching our children differently than the way our parents taught us. We want to educate ourselves about other people’s experiences and talk to our kids about everything, all of it…especially our own complicity. We talk about our bias, blindness, and our own mistakes. We look back and see so many mistakes which have led us to deeply examine who we are and who we want to become. They’ve led us to huge avenues of education,” their statement read.
“We’re committed to raising our kids so they never grow up feeding this insane pattern and so they’ll do their best to never inflict pain on another being consciously or unconsciously. It’s the least we can do to honor not just George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Eric Garner, but all the black men and women who have been killed when a camera wasn’t rolling.”
Reynolds and Lively also informed followers that they donated $200,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and pledged to vote in every local election.
“But mainly, we want to use our privilege and platform to be an ally. And to play a part in easing pain,” the statement concluded.
Presumably, one of the main regrets Lively and Reynolds were referring to is getting married on a plantation. In 2012, the two tied the knot at Boone Hall in South Carolina, where dozens of Black people were enslaved in the pre-Civil War era.