Artists Are The Gatekeepers Of

Since I Have Escaped The Harshness Of The Economic Bounds Of Poverty, I Have Stayed Very Connected To It Spiritually. I Reside And Live And Go And Socialize And Exist Among Those Who Suffer Daily From The Relationship That They Have To Poverty, Black Men And Women Who Are Incarcerated. Actually, All People Who Are Incarcerated, Not Just Black.

Pop Culture Has None Of The Vibrancy That You Find In The Folk Culture, Where People Speak Directly To Their Own Experience In The Human Condition.

I Think There's A Lot That The Larger Society Could Have Been Taught Or Can Be Taught, But I'm Not Sure - Given How Unyielding The Larger Society Has Been - That Much Has Been Learned.

In My Earliest Of Years, My Mother Was A Huge Force In My Life. She Was For All Intents And Purposes, A Single Parent. My Father Had Abandoned Us. He Was An Alcoholic And A Physical Abuser. My Mother Lived Through That Tyranny And Made Her Living As A Domestic Worker. She Was Uneducated But She Brought High Principles And Decent Values Into Our Existence, And She Set Lofty Goals For Herself And For Her Children. We Were Forever Inspired By Her Strength And By Her Resistance To Racism And To Fascism.

We Have The Opportunity Now To Look At The Two Billion People In The World Who Suffer From The Most Abject Poverty, Hunger, Disease, And Devastation. Add To That Another Two Billion People Who Are Just Plain Poor. If You Look Into The World Of Those Caught In Economic Oppression, Illiteracy, Disease, And Sexism, Then You'll Understand More Clearly What We Have To Do.