“Efficiency, competence: Black students know the deadly, neutral definition of these words. There seldom has been a more efficient system for profiteering, through human debasement, than the plantations, of a while ago. Today, the whole world sits, as quietly scared as it can sit, afraid that, tomorrow, America may direct its efficiency and competence toward another forest for defoliation, or clean-cut laser-beam extermination.”

—  June Jordan

Source: Black Studies: Bringing Back The Person (1969), p. 47

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Poet, essayist, playwright, feminist and bisexual activist 1936–2002

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