As long as you say I'm the guy who's real about it, I have no problem being the person who people look to to talk about race.
Professional intellectuals are the voice of a culture and are, therefore, its leaders, its integrators and its bodyguards.
Can a film really change anything? I mean, what was the last time? Maybe the Italian neo-realists, where they became the voice and the heart and the soul of Italy, a nation that had been destroyed. I don't know.
The movie [Miral] is not pro-Palestinian. It's about Palestinians. It's a Palestinian story, written by a Palestinian person. I don't know anybody else that could have done that
There's no lack of writers writing novels in America, about America. Therefore, it seems to me it would be wasteful for me to add to that huge number of people writing here when there are so few people writing about somewhere else.
'Niggy Tardust' is the voice of a generation, a generation that does not define itself simply by what it's born into.
I was in high school and college as hip-hop was really sort of coming into its own as a, you know, creative force, as a sort of cultural voice. And it really spoke to me.
Even if great poetry continues to be written, it has retreated from the center of literary life. Though supported by a loyal coterie, poetry has lost the confidence that it speaks to and for the general culture.
I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa and the people without even realising.
It might sound dramatic and a little grandiose, but as a Latina, I would like to be someone that gives a voice to my culture.
The strange dilemma of the 'ethnic-fiction' writer is that you are supposed to carry a banner for your homeland, be a voice for it, and educate the rest of the world about it, but I think that's far too onerous a burden for any writer to bear.
High fashion has become representative of stability in unstable places; that allows you to have a voice in the world stage.
That odd idea that one person can go to a foreign part and in this rather odd voice describe it to the folks back home doesn't make much sense in the post-colonial world.
I think artists throughout the history of time have always been controversial and have been a voice to speak to public culture in a way that a politician can't because they'll lose their constituency.
