"I see protest as a genuine means of encouraging people to feel the inconsistencies, the horrors of the lives we are living. Social protest is saying that we do not have to live this way. If we feel deeply, and we encourage ourselves and others to feel deeply, we will find the germ of our answers to bring about change. Because once we recognise what it is we are feeling, once we recognise we can feel deeply, love deeply, can feel joy, then we will demand that all parts of our lives produce that kind of joy. And when they do not we will ask ¨why don´t they?¨ And it is the asking that will lead us inevitably to change.
So the question of social protest and art is inseparable for me. I can´t say it is an either-or proposition. Art for artś sake doesn´t really exist for me. What I saw was wrong and I had to speak up. I love poetry, and I loved words. But what was beautiful had to serve the purpose of changing my life, or I would have died. If I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it. That is the beginning of social protest."
So the question of social protest and art is inseparable for me. I can´t say it is an either-or proposition. Art for artś sake doesn´t really exist for me. What I saw was wrong and I had to speak up. I love poetry, and I loved words. But what was beautiful had to serve the purpose of changing my life, or I would have died. If I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it. That is the beginning of social protest."
—
Audre Lorde
(Thank you tinymuses)
(via kathleenjoy)
