Appearing Sunday at SXSW, out director Lee Daniel described the election of President Donald Trump as painful.

Daniels (Precious, Lee Daniel's The Butler, Empire) told the crowd that he had found a silver lining to the election of Trump.

“We're in difficult times,” Daniels is quoted as saying by Deadline Hollywood. “This man is where he is – he's a reflection of who we are. He is our karma. I'm trying to explain this to my son. It's hard to be a dad and hard to be a black dad.”

“I think some of the best art, literature, writing will come out of this. [After the election] I couldn't sleep, but I wrote some of the best work I have ever done. I was in pain,” he added.

Daniels recalled moving to Los Angeles at the height of the AIDS epidemic and ending up “on drugs.”

“It's a miracle I don't have HIV,” Daniels said. “I can't figure it out.”