Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.
Harry BelafonteRead
In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the violence and systemic issues faced by the black community, particularly its children.
Harry Belafonte's quote poignantly addresses the horrific reality of violence affecting black children in society. It highlights the disproportionate suffering experienced by this community, portraying them as the most vulnerable in a world that often overlooks their plight. The metaphor of a 'river of blood' serves to amplify the urgency of the issue, urging listeners to acknowledge and act against the injustices that lead to this suffering.
In practice
This quote could be used during a community rally advocating for anti-violence measures.
Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.
You can cage the singer but not the song.
I've always been supportive of the right of Israel as a state, and I've always fought against anti-Semitism, even in my own community.
Art in its highest form is art that serves and instructs society and human development.
Anti-democracy...is a virus that exists, and pro-democracy is the antibody to that virus, and I think we have to become vigilant, and we have to stay on top of the issues of democracy and freedom.
Children who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS are not only just as deserving of an education as any other children, but they may need that education even more. Being part of a school environment will prepare them for the future, while helping to remove the stigma and discrimination unfortunately associated with AIDS.
Sitting on the floor, I'd replay the past in my head. Funny, that's all I did, day after day after day for half a year, and I never tired of it. What I'd been through seemed so vast, with so many facets. Vast, but real, very real, which was why the experience persisted in towering before me, like a monument lit up at night. And the thing was, it was a monument to me.
If the concept of consciousness were to fall to science, what would happen to our sense of moral agency and free will? If conscious experience were reduced somehow to mere matter in motion, what would happen to our appreciation of love and pain and dreams and joy? If conscious human beings were just animated material objects, how could anything we do to them be right or wrong?
Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them, for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash - the triumphs, the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life: we're going to die. "Be of good heart," cry the dead artists out of the living past. "Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing." Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much.
Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death - ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.
Christ did not die to make his Father loving, but because his Father is loving: the atoning blood is the outflow of the very heart of God toward us.
The world without spirit is a wasteland. People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules, and who's on top, and so forth. No, no! Any world is a valid world if it's alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself.
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