You will find here a brief video of the late Gil Scott-Heron, described by Gwendolyn Brooks as:

Chance-taker

Emotion voyager

Street-strutter

Contemporary Spirit

Untamed Proud Poet

Rough Healer

He is His.

In the moving interview this remarkable, flawed and complex artist argues that if you complain, but do nothing, you should shut the fuck up.  This minds me of William Morris’s nineteenth century proposal, to do nothing but grumble and not to act – that is throwing one’s life away.

Either way the challenge is to throw off  the stifling pillow-case of passivity and stand together for what we believe in.

If you don’t know his work here is an example – Work for Peace

and you can listen to his final album, I’m New Here

and read a touching obituary, within which Gil is quoted as saying, “If someone comes to you and asks for help, and you can help them, you’re supposed to help them. Why wouldn’t you? You have been put in the position somehow to be able to help this person.”