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What tyranny could exceed a tyranny that dictates to the human heart?
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
Heart
Dictates
Exceed
Sexuality
Tyranny
Human
Humans
More quotes by June Jordan
... if your heart and your honest body can be controlled by the state, or controlled by community taboo, are you not then, and in that case, no more than a slave ruled by outside force? What tyranny could exceed a tyranny that dictates to the human heart, and that attempts to dictate the public career of an honest human body?
June Jordan
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
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
June Jordan
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
... 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
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
Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.
June Jordan
Revolution always unfolds inside an atmosphere of rising expectations.
June Jordan
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
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
The United States Supreme Court, once a reliable if ultimate recourse for progressive and even revolutionary grievances, has become a retrograde wellspring for enormous economic and social distress.
June Jordan
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
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
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
I wrote those poems for myself, as a way of being a soldier here in this country. I didn't know the poems would travel. I didn't go to Lebanon until two years ago, but people told me that many Arabs had memorized these poems and translated them into Arabic.
June Jordan
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
To tell the truth is to become beautiful.
June Jordan
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
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
To begin is no more agony than opening your hand.
June Jordan
