I've always had questions about what it meant to be a protester, to be in the minority. Are the people who are trying to find peace, who are trying to have the Constitution apply to everybody, are they really the radicals? We're not protesting from the outside. We're inside.
Gil Scott-HeronIf we meet somebody who has never made a mistake, lets help them start a religion. Until then, were just going to meet other humans and help to make each other better.
Gil Scott-HeronI think a whole lot of stuff gets by people - I could name half a dozen groups that do songs that are openly supportive of experimentation with drugs, nobody ever said anything to them.
Gil Scott-HeronWe understand what the difference is between what we understand and what the community understands about what we're doing because they have supported us long enough for me to stay out here, while other people who are doing other things have not. A lot of people have trouble pinning down what it is we do and how. But we don't have any trouble with that. As long as that's their problem, it's their problem.
Gil Scott-HeronPaul Robeson once said that the artist has the responsibility to either help liberate the community or further oppress it. And I think that when Eldridge Cleaver wrote it down it was interpreted as his, but there's a history of people saying things of that nature and meaning it. And what I do is in that tradition, in that mode.
Gil Scott-Heron