For Braff’s part, he explained that recent events have shed light on how he could be a better ally.
“I grew up in New Jersey and New York and L.A., so I’ve always grown up in very diverse places,” he recalled. “It was never, you know, having African American friends and Hispanic friends and Asian friends—I mean, I grew up in an area where I thought there just as many Jewish people as Christian people because I grew up in an area where there were so many Jewish people.”
Crediting his upbringing with giving him “a leg up in a sense of loving and being around people of all different types,” the Garden State star pledged to be more proactive moving forward.
“I think this conversation is new, for me in a sense, because I’m now going—as I’m listening to everyone whose speaking and reading, I know that I too have lots to learn,” Braff said. “It’s not enough to just say, ‘Oh, my best friend is a Black man.’ It’s not enough to say, ‘Oh, I grew up with a diverse population.'”