When we heard about the hippies, the barely more than boys and girls who decided to try something different ... we laughed at them. We condemned them, our children, for seeking a different future. We hated them for their flowers, for their love, and for their unmistakable rejection of every hideous, mistaken compromise that we had made throughout our hollow, money-bitten, frightened, adult lives
Interpretation
This quote reflects societal criticism of youth movements that challenge traditional values and norms.
June Jordan's quote expresses a profound disapproval by the older generation towards the youth, particularly the hippies, who sought to break free from conventional societal norms. It highlights the paradox of laughter and condemnation directed at a longing for love, peace, and a more authentic existence, contrasting it with the fears and compromises that characterized adult life. The quote suggests that this disdain comes from a fear of change and a rejection of the beautiful idealism embodied by the younger generation.
In practice
In a speech about youth activism, this quote can highlight the generational divide in perspectives on societal change.
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
Letting go of the past means that you can enjoy the dream that is happening right now.
Every day, we hear of civilians being killed and wounded in violation of the basic rules of international humanitarian law and with total impunity. Instability is spreading. Suffering is growing. No country can remain untouched.
When I was young, we were taught not to dunk. We were taught not to stand out from the rest of the team. It's different now.
There are more black men incarcerated today than there were slaves in 1850.
There is no fundamental social change by being simply of individual and interpersonal actions. You have to have organizations and institutions that make a fundamental difference.
A working woman could save a few shillings a week, and then every five weeks she'd come in and we'd cut her hair. She could shampoo it under the shower, swing it and dry it off or just let it dry by itself. It changed the lives of many young girls who'd never had the opportunity to be styled like that before.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.