Kick-back this Sunday and listen to a talk from James Baldwin, who for this Brit is the standout social commentator and essayist of American life, in the 20th Century.
Standout quotes:
“The writer should be the voice of the dispossessed.” (Albert Camus - all the rest are JB)
“The audience can only be activated when the writer begins writing.”
“A writer’s responsibility is to [their] time and place.”
“The artist’s responsibility, firstly, is to become an artist.”
“Why is an artist always in trouble…because [they] challenge people to do the things they don’t want to do.”
“A poet/writer is a disturber of the peace.”
Do you see yourself as a disturber of the peace, a voice for the dispossessed?
Baldwin shuns the label of the writer as a ‘moral custodian’ and more as a witness; someone who is not ideologically motivated to point out the social crimes of the opposing ideologies, but who stands on the margins and doesn’t position themselves in the ‘soft centre’ …and claiming all is well.
