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art were. I was an emotional painter. I was a romanticist. Now this isn't to say that I was a person who was so in love with everybody that I wasn't capable of a little hate. I was capable of a lot of hate, and I'm capable of a lot of hate now, which many of my friends think,can very warmly and vigorously attest to. However, I can't paint hate. I couldn't paint hate then. I can't paint hate now. I can't use this medium that I get such a charge out of. I can't use this medium through which if there's any possibility for me to feel some kind of universality with people, A ONENESS WITH MAN, and to believe in my  man, to believe in myself and to believe in my fellow man, I can't use this medium to paint something that's negative, that's against man. I can't do this. I can use my big fat mouth, I can use a lot of things, and I have used them. 'Cause also part of that schooling which was not just the abstract experience of some uncle or some aunt or some cousin getting killed in Mississippi, or my mother being abused on a job or something, but part of that training and also learning process was to come later when I was to get beaten in the South. When I was to get threatened with being killed. Not only in the South but in New York too. And I thought of that, but my art I've gotta use for something else. So in this rambling about way, I've tried to give you some kind of small picture of the times I grew up in and a little bit of what my life was like in the beginning. As I look around this room and see

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