This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair. No place for self-pity. No room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
-Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison was an American novelist and editor. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
The National Endowment for the Humanities selected Morrison for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government’s highest honor for achievement in the humanities, in 1996. President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on May 29, 2012. Morrison was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2020.
-Wikipedia
Profound advice, particularly here in the United States, as well as throughout the world. We all are living in a time when fear dominates: division, violence, hatred, chaos.
A time of dissension: within and between families, friends, neighbors, nations; a separation and conflict between philosophies, religions , races, and politics; an oftentimes violent dispute between what is cruel and what is kind.
In order to establish some degree of unity and an equitable understanding of humanity, we must strive to do so not only as artists, but as citizens of our world…as brothers and sisters.
It can only be achieved by working together as one.
The time is now.
Do Not bBe Afraid.