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My father was both the person who gave me reason to learn how to fight and the one who taught me the basics of fighting. He would tell me that if it was a big fight, it would probably be uneven, it wouldn't be fair

June Jordan

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June Jordan
Age: 65 †
Born: 1936
Born: July 9
Died: 2002
Died: June 14
Essayist
Lgbtiq+ Rights Activist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Harlem
New York
June Millicent Jordan
Person
Taught
Reason
Probably
Uneven
Would
Fighting
Basics
Bigs
Fairs
Learn
Fair
Father
Gave
Tell
Wouldn
Persons
Fight

More quotes by June Jordan

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Like running trying to live a good life has to hurt a little bit, or we're not running hard enough, not really trying.
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That a little child will lead us back to the child we will always be, vulnerable and wanting and hurting for love and for beauty.
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Bisexuality means I am free and I am as likely to want to love a woman as I am likely to want to love a man, and what about that? Isn't that what freedom implies?
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We need everybody and all that we are. We need to know and make known the complete, constantly unfolding, complicated heritage that is our black experience. We should absolutely resist the superstar, one at a time mentality that threatens the varied and resilient, flexible wealth of our Black future.
June Jordan
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Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law.
June Jordan
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Overall, white men run America. From nuclear armaments to the filth and jeopardy of New York City subways to the cruel mismanagement of health care, is there anything to boast about?
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I am the history of the rejection of who I am
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Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness unless you attack the language that you share with your enemies and invent a language that you share with your allies.
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In America, you can segregate the people, but the problems will travel. From slavery to equal rights, from state suppression of dissent to crime, drugs and unemployment, I can't think of a supposedly Black issue that hasn't wasted the original Black target group and then spread like measles to outlying white experience.
June Jordan
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The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think
June Jordan
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Reproductive choice is not some trendy item to toss or keep around the house. If you cannot get an education or a job, if you cannot choose what will or will not happen with your own body, then what freedom do you have?
June Jordan
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The purpose of polite behavior is never virtuous. Deceit, surrender, and concealment these are not virtues. The goal of the mannerly is comfort, per se.
June Jordan
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We are the ones we've been waiting for.
June Jordan
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In the process of telling the truth about what you feel or what you see, each of us has to get in touch with himself or herself in a really deep, serious way.
June Jordan
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What tyranny could exceed a tyranny that dictates to the human heart?
June Jordan
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One of the reasons I came to Berkeley was because I saw so many students of all different colors speaking so many different languages and ferociously presenting all these different views. I thought, this is the 21st century and I want to be here!
June Jordan
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and if i if i ever let love go because the hatred and the whisperings become a phantom dictate i o- bey in lieu of impulse and realities (the blossoming flamingos of my wild mimosa trees) then let love freeze me out. (from i must become a menace to my enemies)
June Jordan
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A democratic state is not proven by the welfare of the strong but by the welfare of the weak.
June Jordan
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To begin is no more agony than opening your hand.
June Jordan
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Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.
June Jordan