Mark Bradford Quotes

Everything I do is political.

The world has changed. People who care nothing about norms can no longer be dismissed as a fringe. For generations, left-wing activists have instructed students and other groups that norms are the building blocks of a rigged system that deprives them of power and denies their “selfless” desires. We don’t want to acknowledge what this has wrought. We have norms because they safeguard foundational principles, such as due process, the presumption of innocence, and freedom from unreasonable and unwarranted police prying. But the Left is no longer attached to those principles.

I'm not quite sure precisely when social and political activism became a visible brand of my DNA, but it seems to me that I was born into it. It is hard to be born into the experience in the world of poverty and not develop some instinct for survival and resistance to those things that oppress you.

For me, politics is about passion. It doesn't matter what you know; it's your actions that count. I meet people who say they're socialists, and that's not what they carry out in their everyday life.

I am such a political person.

Just by making a decision to stay out of politics, you are making the decision to allow others to shape politics and exert power over you. And if you are alienated from the current political system, then just by staying out of it, if you do nothing to change it, you simply entrench it.

We're all living blinkered lives, and we're not seeing what's going on and looking to change it. I'm not saying that everyone has to make a political statement, but we need to be more aware of what's happening and why.

I am not political. It is not my job. But I would be happy if politicians could read my work and draw some conclusions from it.

Without alienation, there can be no politics.

You don't choose a party because it's the flavour of the month. I feel I will be able to work under a political system. I feel if people like me don't enter politics to bring change, who will?

I am a strong believer in the intertwined nature of the personal and the political; I think they move together.

I have a very strong political outlook, and that is something I'd like to take more responsibility for in my life. I don't believe in utilising certain aspects of the power I have with celebrity to push that forward, but I would like to make some films that address some of those political issues.

Our aims in political activism are not, and should not be, to create a perfect utopia.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it's how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

You can't do anything that's not political in this time and age.

My first passion is politics.

People always said you shouldn't get in politics and talk about politics. But I believe the politics are all around us.

I always say I was a liberal, but I wasn't active in politics. I just assumed I was a liberal because I was black and I was a woman. And I know now that sounds really foolish, but I had different priorities.

There are beautiful songs people write about love and dancing. But it's political issues that should be addressed.

I've always been political.

I was a political science major. I was always interested in social impact.

I have struggled in life and this has made me sensitive towards the needs of others. Politics gives you the opportunity to really do something.

You would be naive to suggest that politics isn't complicated or isn't a game, but you don't create change through cynicism.

I have always been politically active and vaguely dissatisfied with the state of news, but I wasn't sure why.

Politics is how you live your life, not whom you vote for.