As a Black man, I have no choice but to be active as it is a life or death matter. Like James Baldwin said, it took his father’s time and his father’s father’s time, so I am not even an activist. Growing up a Black man, it was instilled in me to care about my community because in short, no one will do it for us. As an artist, I create based on what is happening. If life is happy my art is happy; if life is sad, it is sad.
“…it comes at a great shock at the age of five or six or seven, to discover the flag to which you have pledged allegiance along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to discover that Gary Cooper killing off the Indians when you were rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians were you. It comes at a great shock to discover that the country which is your birthplace and to which you owe your life and your identity has not in its whole system of reality evolved any place for you.” A statement taken from James Baldwin during a 1965 Cambridge University debate. Now I ask you as a BLM activist, is the American Dream at the expense of what he called ‘the American Negro’?