And who will join this standing up and the ones who stood without sweet company will sing and sing back into the mountains and if necessary even under the sea: we are the ones we have been waiting for.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of collective action and self-reliance in creating change.
In this quote, June Jordan articulates a call to action for individuals to come together in solidarity, suggesting that true change depends on the collective efforts of people. By stating that 'we are the ones we have been waiting for,' she reinforces the idea that we should not wait for external forces to bring about change, but rather take initiative ourselves as a united front, even in the face of challenges.
In practice
This quote can be used to inspire a community gathering focused on social justice.
I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.
Anytime you see white men suppose to fight each other an you not white, well you know you got trouble, because they blah-blah loud about Democrat or Republican an they huffing an puff about democracy someplace else but relentless, see, the deal come down evil on somebody don have no shirt an tie, somebody don live in no whiteman house no whiteman country.
In America, the traditional routes to black identity have hardly been normal. Suicide (disappearance by imitation, or willed extinction), violence (hysterical religiosity, crime, armed revolt), and exemplary moral courage; none of these is normal.
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.
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.
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
The challenge is to make the church's yes to life concrete and effective. The struggle will be long, and it needs each one of you. Place your intelligence, your talents, your enthusiasm, your compassion and your fortitude at the service of life!
You know how many men make music without biting each other's heads off? Why do we have to do that? There's room for everybody. I really couldn't care less what the next girl's doing. If she's shining, that's good. It's not taking away from my light.
The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.
It turns out that, somehow, there are a tremendous number of things to be optimistic about.
If it's true that I wouldn't have had a career if it weren't for these conversations about diversity, the importance of representation, then I need to continue to fight that battle for the people that come after me.
We hope to create thousands of astronauts over the next few years and bring alive their dream of seeing the majestic beauty of our planet from above, the stars in all their glory and the amazing sensations of weightlessness and space flight.
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