Run a hand through your hair, like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.
Junot DiazRead
Artists are not cheerleaders, and we're not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradictory, what is hurtful and what is silenced in the culture we're in.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Artists reveal societal issues rather than simply promoting culture.
In this quote, Junot Diaz emphasizes the role of artists as critical observers and commentators on societal issues, rather than mere promoters of culture. He argues that the true function of art is to challenge, expose, and discuss the underlying problems and contradictions present in our society, rather than to merely celebrate it.
Themes
ArtSocietyCultureCritiqueExpression
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on contemporary art, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of critical engagement in artistic practice.
More from Junot Diaz
All quotes →I can see myself watching him shave every morning. And at other time I see us in that house and see how one bright day (or a day like this, so cold your mind shifts every time the wind does) he will wake up and decide it's all wrong. I'm sorry, he'll say. I have to leave now.
Junot DiazRead
Migration gives a blank cheque to put anything you don't feel like addressing in the memory hold. No neighbours can go against the monster narrative of your family.
Junot DiazRead
We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there's an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves.
Junot DiazRead
I think 90% of my ideas evaporate because I have a terrible memory and because I seem to be committed to not scribble anything down. As soon as I write it down, my mind rejects it.
Junot DiazRead
When I read Toni Morrison and Sandra Cisneros as a freshman at Rutgers, it all clicked - that writing was all I wanted to do. It became my calling.
Junot DiazRead
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That kill the bloom before its time, And blanch, without the owner's crime, The most resplendent hair.
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I became a human jukebox, learning all these songs I'd always known, discovering the basics of what I do. The cathartic part was in the essential act of singing. When is it that the voice becomes an elixir? It's during flirting, courtship, sex. Music's all that.
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