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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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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
Cities
Subway
White
Overall
Running
Boast
Subways
America
Cruel
Mismanagement
Care
Nuclear
Armaments
Anything
York
Armament
Men
City
Jeopardy
Health
Filth

More quotes by 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 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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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
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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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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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Like running trying to live a good life has to hurt a little bit, or we're not running hard enough, not really trying.
June Jordan
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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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To begin is no more agony than opening your hand.
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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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?
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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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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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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Revolution always unfolds inside an atmosphere of rising expectations.
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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... 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
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If we even tolerate any oppression of gay and lesbian Americans, if we join those who would intrude upon the choices of our hearts, then who among us shall be free?
June Jordan
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Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.
June Jordan
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I am the history of the rejection of who I am
June Jordan
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It means to educate myself incessantly about the world around me.
June Jordan