IF WE ARE PEOPLE OF CONSCIENCE

IF WE ARE PEOPLE OF CONSCIENCE

          I want you to know I am very grateful to every one of you for the interest you've expressed, feedback you've given, your patronage, and your help in sharing with others about ARTHAUS:Detroit, Detroit artists I've featured and, especially, related relevant social justice history. It means a great deal to me to be able to take people, work, efforts and events of significance -- that too many folks remain unaware of, or have been forgotten or disregarded over the years -- to clutch them like the gems they are, dust them off and hold them up to the light. To see what there is worth knowing and sharing with folks about them, with some hope of kindling new passion and appreciation for them.

          We are in a loop of time where unpleasant history -- and that's putting it all too nicely --seems to be repeating itself, and social justice concerns are -- if we're people of conscience -- moving more to the forefront of our thoughts and daily lives. So, I see these introductions and reintroductions as both timely and necessary. We need to know about the Mary Hamiltons of this world. We need more Mary Hamiltons.

          We have to speak truth to power. It ain't gonna speak it to itself. But we have to know the truth to speak the truth. To learn and be informed about the rest of the story. The parts that are often left out of school text books or otherwise obscured. Or, if we learned it long ago, to be reminded of it. So to be motivated by it...to act on it. To make good trouble...when it's our turn.

          Here's to a new year of learning. And motivation.

          Cheers. I'll be taking a time out. But I look forward to being back here with you again in about two weeks.