"We need to be talking about it"
Ellen Page had an urgent message about the dangers of hate for viewers at home during a late night appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The Umbrella Academy actress pulled no punches when it came to calling out the Trump administration in an impassioned speech, where she told Colbert that she was “really fired up.”
During her interview with Colbert, Page sounded off on environmental racism and how climate change disproportionately affects communities of color the most.
“This is something that’s happening, and it’s happening to the most marginalized people, and we need to be talking about it,” she said. “It’s really serious.”
She later addressed therise homophobia and rise in hate crimes, including the recent attack on actor Jussie Smollett, who said he was assaulted by two masked men who put a rope around his neck and shouted homophobic and racist insults at him.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]“The urgency is so severe, and yet we have a media that’s barely talking about it,” Page said. “We have a media that’s saying it’s a debate whether or not what just happened to Jussie Smollett is a hate crime. It’s absurd! This sh-t isn’t a debate.”
Page then pointed to the anti-LGBTQ+A policies of Donald Trump and Mike Pence and others in position of power for their role in hateful acts such as this.
“This is what happens,” she said. “If you are in a position of power, and you hate people, and you want to cause suffering to them, you go through the trouble, you spend your career trying to cause suffering — what do you think is going to happen? Kids are going to be abused, and they’re going to kill themselves. People are going to be beaten on the street.”
Watch Page’s full comments below.