Like An Activist Touched for the Very 1st Time? Madonna Speaks!

Okay so I have to admit that when I throw shade at any pop star, the first reference point is always Madonna. Think: Kabala, Malawi, etc etc etc.

But check out this intervew in nymag. To me it sounds like she's just tryin to do her thang in the world, as imperfect as it might come across she concedes. Here are my fav snippets from the Q & A article:

Speaking of the eighties, you were one of the first pop stars to talk about the AIDS crisis. But I’ve never heard you discuss any connection between that and your work in Malawi. Is there one?
There are a lot. One is that I myself feel like a motherless child. I grew up that way. But also the idea that I felt so helpless by the AIDS epidemic that seemed to sweep through Manhattan and claim the lives of so many people that I loved. And I saw how stigmatized the gay community was, and that freaked me out.

You’re now something of an expert on Malawi. But when the activist Victoria Keelan first called you about getting involved, you said, “I don’t even know where that is.” And she hung up on you. Not too many people hang up on you, do they?
I thought that was rather cheeky. She found me quite impertinent in the beginning. Like, “You’re asking the stupidest questions—do you want to help or not?” And she was absolutely correct.

In the movie, you look at one ritual in which a young woman is told she must have sex with a man three times in a day, in order to “cleanse” her.
It’s not my place to judge that tradition. But to have a conversation with a village headsman and say, “Do you realize this is spreading a deadly disease?” and have him say, “Yes, but there’s nothing I can do” is mind-bogglingly frustrating. But we drop bombs on children during wartime, so you think, Well, who’s practicing black magic?

- New York Magazine, full interview at http://nymag.com/movies/profiles/46189/

Hmm... ;)