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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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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
Problem
Problems
Issue
Wasted
States
Issues
Spread
Unemployment
Think
Rights
Group
Hasn
Segregate
Thinking
State
Travel
Target
Measles
Like
White
Drug
Drugs
Supposedly
People
Black
Crime
Originals
Suppression
Experience
Equal
Original
Segregation
America
Groups
Slavery
Dissent

More quotes by June Jordan

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If any of us hopes to survive, she must meet the extremity of the American female condition with immediate and political response. The thoroughly destructive and indefensible subjugation of the majority of Americans cannot continue except at the peril of the entire body politic.
June Jordan
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We are the ones we've been waiting for.
June Jordan
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The music of language became extremely important to me, and obvious to me. By the time I was seven I was writing myself. I was a poet
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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I am the history of the rejection of who I am
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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I think I have come to a place where I'm able to feel more comfortable about being honest.
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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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?
June Jordan
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... the histories of Blacks and Jews in bondage and out of bondage, have been blood histories pursued through our kindred searchings for self-determination. Let this blood be a stain of honor that we share. Let us not now become enemies to ourselves and to each other.
June Jordan
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To believe is to become what you believe.
June Jordan
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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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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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We do not deride the fears of prospering white America. A nation of violence and private property has every reason to dread the violated and the deprived.
June Jordan
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Americans have begun to understand that trouble does not start somewhere on the other side of town. It seems to originate inside the absolute middle of the homemade cherry pie.
June Jordan
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It means to educate myself incessantly about the world around me.
June Jordan
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There are two ways to worry words. One is hoping for the greatest possible beauty in what is created. The other is to tell the truth.
June Jordan
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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.
June Jordan
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What's important about poetry in the context of leadership is that most of the time, power has to do with dominance. But poetry is never about dominance. Poetry is powerful but it cannot even aspire to dominate anyone. It means making a connection. That's what it means.
June Jordan