John Edgar Wideman Quotes

I think the good thing about Macklemore is that he is very precise about what he gets involved in. As you can tell, he's very passionate about what he puts his name on, because he talks about things people don't usually talk about, and his concepts are very, very passionate.

I'm driven by issues, not driven to be political.

To call someone like me a writer-activist suggests that it's not the job of a writer to write about the society in which they live. But it used to be our job.

I wouldn't say even that I'm a broadly political person. But on occasion, I have felt that I have no choice but to paint something with a strong moral stance.

Because of my song 'Sam Stone,' a lot of people thought I was interested in writing protest songs. Writing protest songs always struck me as patting yourself on the back.

I don't think there was really a time when I have not been politically aware.

A good writer cannot avoid having social consciousness. I don't mean this about small pieces of writing, but about a big book. If it's a big book, there has to be more than one undertow.

I've never written a political song. Songs can't save the world. I've gone through all that.

I don't have a constituency, and I'm not autobiographical in any way. I write these deeply moral books in a country which would prefer irony to anything with a moral tone.

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 don't set out to write a political song. I am not one of those that feels compelled to write about what's going on.

We're not a political band, we're a socially-minded band.

We also have issue oriented storylines which are an examination of an issue, be it ethical or social.

We didn't start out to make a protest record at all. That would have been too shallow. As usual, it was simply a case of absorbing what's going on around us.

I'm not really sure what social message my art carries, if any. And I don't really want it to carry one. I'm not interested in the subject matter to try to teach society anything, or to try to better our world in any way.

Consumerism diverts us from thinking about women's rights, it stops us from thinking about Iraq, it stops us from thinking about what's going on in Africa - it stops us from thinking in general.

One of the things that I've always not liked is the modern players have always concentrated on dancing in the end zone and BSing when serious things were going on in this country that needed to be changed. So my opinion is that when these young people stand up and risk their careers, that's a good sign for everything and all of us.

I think it's important to hold a mirror up to society and yourself.

I need to get a tiny bit more 'woke.'

There have been many socially conscious concept albums. I wanted to make a 'social consciousness' concept album disguised as a country record.

I am an aware citizen, so I want my characters to be aware, too. They should be aware of what's happening in the society and make a commentary. They're not in a la la land.

If you're an activist trying to do something important, I salute you. Most of us just give ourselves ethical brownie points for watching Channel 2 instead of Channel 3, like characters in a broad dystopian satire.

Honestly, I'm not a big activism or politic guy. I wouldn't say I'm super educated in that stuff, and I feel like I shouldn't speak on things that I don't understand too much.

Though I do believe that when you live in political times it is inevitable that your art be political, I also think we need to start making activists celebrities rather than trying to make celebrities to be activists.

I'm very political and I'm not ashamed of it, and I think having the platform I have, I want to take advantage of that.