Quotessence
Home / Authors / June Jordan
June Jordan

June Jordan Quotes

Poet

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsBlackWhiteChildrenMeanAmericaLanguagePoetryStatesTelling The TruthHeartNamesPeoplePoliticalThinkingWayBodyMenPoemPoet

Famous June Jordan Quotes

“There is a man who exists as one of the most popular objects of leadership, legislation, and quasi-literature in the history of all men. . . . This man, that object of attention, attack, and vast activity, cannot make himself be heard, let alone understood. He has never been listened to. . . . That man is Black and alive in white America where the media of communication do not allow the delivery of his own voice, his own desires, his own rage.”

MenAmericaDesireLiteratureBlackVoiceWhiteAttentionAliveHeardMediaObjectsCommunicationActivityUnderstoodRageLegislationDelivery
Author:June Jordan
Create image

“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.”

PeopleThinkingI CanStatesProblemAmericaBlackWhiteIssuesRightsGroupsCrimeDrugEqualOriginalsSlaverySpreadTargetUnemploymentSegregationEqual RightsDissentSuppressionMeasles
Book:On call: political essays
Create image

“As a poet and writer, I deeply love and I deeply hate words. I love the infinite evidence and change and requirements and possibilities of language; every human use of words that is joyful, or honest or new, because experience is new... But as a Black poet and writer, I hate words that cancel my name and my history and the freedom of my future: I hate the words that condemn and refuse the language of my people in America.”

PeopleLoveHumansUseAmericaHateNamesLanguageBlackHonestPossibilityPoetEvidenceI HateInfiniteRefuseJoyfulRequirementsMy Future
Author:June Jordan
Create image

“Lately... 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. In our history, the state has failed to respond to the weak. You could be white, male, Presbyterian and heterosexual besides, but if you get fired or if you get sick tomorrow, you might as well be Black, for all the state will want to hear from you.”

IfsWantWellsDoeStatesSeemsMightAmericaSidesBlackWhiteTroubleMiddleTomorrowWeakSickAbsolutesTownsMalesPieCherriesHomemadePresbyteriansCherry Pie
Book:On call: political essays
Create image