Sex And The City star Cynthia Nixon: White people need to catch up on race

Sex And The City star Cynthia Nixon has said white people have got to “catch up” on the “race problem”.

The actress played ambitious lawyer Miranda on the classic TV show and entered politics in 2018 with an unsuccessful bid to become governor of New York.

Nixon ran on a progressive ticket but failed to oust Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo.

She appeared on the Homo Sapiens podcast, hosted by Alan Cumming and Chris Sweeney, and discussed “white privilege”, saying listening is key to achieving greater equality.

She said: “I think it’s really important for white people and other people to listen to people of colour – that’s the most important thing we can do.

“Right after that we have to really start understanding how, if we are white, we benefit from white supremacy and talking about that. Because people of colour are miles ahead in understanding the race problem and white people really have got to catch up.

“The first thing is listening, and the second thing is when you speak about things. Like mass incarceration of people of colour – include yourself in the equation and say ‘this would not happen to me’.”

Nixon, 54, is married to Christine Marinoni, having tied the knot in 2012. Her oldest child, from a previous relationship, came out as transgender in 2018.

The actress said the debate around trans people is similar to the one around the gay community 40 years ago.

She said: “You can make all the arguments that you want… but the fact is, as a parent, as a human, you should listen to what people tell you about themselves.

“And if they want to make this really extreme change or move in that direction, people are not going to do this lightly. It’s different but it’s the same as when you think about 30/40 years ago and more, the arguments given to gay people that ‘this is just a phase’, ‘you’re gonna grow out of this’.”