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Jul 9 • 17 tweets • 11 min read
Today is the born day of Black bisexual poet and feminist activist #JuneJordan. June jordan sitting on a chair with her right arm on her leg
I quote her in just about every essay:

“Like a lot of Black women, I have always had to invent the power my freedom requires." feministgiant.com/p/essay-inciti… #JuneJordan
#JuneJordan is one of my favourite poets and activists. Her words are tattooed on my right arm. She wrote “Poem About Police Violence” after police chocked to death a Black man called Arthur Miller in Brooklyn, New York, June 14, 1978. lambdaliterary.org/wp-content/upl… Text of poem in the linkText of poem in the link
I quote her in just about every essay because #JuneJordan’s poetry and essays were revolution; the thoughts and ideas of an artist and revolutionary who connected the domestic to the global as she insisted “I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies.” feministgiant.com/p/essay-become…
There is no poem like #JuneJordan's Poem About My Rights, that connects sexual violence to State violence to family violence and puts patriarchy on notice:

"my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life." poetryfoundation.org/poems/48762/po…
The pandemic is not over. We are walking around with massive unacknowledged grief. #JuneJordan's words soon after 9/11 are relevant for those of us who have not died:

“What shall we do now? How shall we grieve, and cry out loud, and face down despair?” feministgiant.com/p/essay-some-o… The cover of Some of Us Did Not Die by June Jordan: a photog
"If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable...,"

In the chapter on Lust in #7NecessarySins and my essay for #ThisArabisQueer, I quote from #JuneJordan's 1991 essay A New Politics of Sexuality, about the revolutionary potential of bisexuality
“We must move out from the shadows of our collective subjugation - as people of color/as women/as gay/as lesbian/as bisexual human beings,” #JuneJordan, 1991. rachelyon1.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/a-new-…
"I do not believe that we can restore and expand the freedoms that our lives require unless and until we embrace the justice of our rage.”

In the chapter on Anger in The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls and this essay, I quote #JuneJordan feministgiant.com/p/letter-dear-…
“There is no chance that we will fall apart
There is no chance
There are no parts.”

Love poetry you say? #JuneJordan has plenty to say on love, desire, longing and lust.

poets.org/poem/poem-numb…
Now I do
relive an evening of retreat
a bridge I left behind
where all the solid heat
of lust and tender trembling
lay as cruel and as kind
as passion spins its infinite
tergiversations in between the bitter
and the sweet.
-- #JuneJordan, Poem for Haruko poetryfoundation.org/poems/54507/po…
Happy Born Day June Jordan (July 9, 1936 – June 14, 2002): Black, feminist, bisexual activist, poet and author. Her poetry and essays have keep me sane #JuneJordan Black and white photo of June Jordan from the shoulders abov
Read some of #JuneJordan’s poetry here
poets.org/poet/june-jord… A photograph of June Jordan in a coat next to the words &quo
I know I will quote #JuneJordan again.

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feministgiant.com
Become a menace to your enemies.

Read #JuneJordan

poets.org/poem/i-must-be…
And here’s #JuneJordan’s words tattooed on my skin, next to Sekhmet 📷 @rerutled Mona’s forearm with a tattoo of the words “we are the on
The words are from #JuneJordan’s Poem for South African Women poets.org/poem/poem-sout…

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Jul 8
Last September, for Safe Abortion Day, I finally wrote about my two abortions feministgiant.com/p/abortion-is-… Mona holding a sign saying "I have had two abortions.&q
For as long as patriarchy can shroud abortion with silence, it will continue to stamp it in shame. So I broke my silence to break free of shame. #ourabortionstories feministgiant.com/p/essay-lies-s…
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How lovely that anyone thinks Brett Kavanaugh has the "right to eat dinner." Fuck. That. Shit. How about the right to control my uterus. How about abortion is a human right. Disrupt these zealots everywhere. h/t CrynJohannsen Tweet by Daniel Lippman: NEW: Justice Brett Kavanaugh had toText: “THE RIGHT … TO EAT DINNER”— On Wednesday nigh
Fuck the Supreme Court.

This is not the time for politeness or civility. I refuse to be civil with religious zealots who do not recognize my full humanity and who are denying me the fundamental right of ownership of my body.

Politeness is capitulation. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-se…
There is nothing polite or civil about white supremacist patriarchy and the zealots it has installed on the Supreme Court, who voted against a medical procedure that the majority of people in the U.S. believe should be the prerogative of the pregnant person.
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Jul 7
How often do you see a film that centres a woman in her early 60s who wants to fuck? #GoodLucktoYouLeoGrande
How often do films center a woman in her early 60s? I am 54yo and can barely watch films & TV shows these days because they’re too often about high school students or 31yos whose dilemmas are too far in my past to care about & whose parents are too peripheral to keep my attention
Heteronormative patriarchy’s designated shelf life for cisgender women is the age at which we cease to be its walking incubators. And yet here is a woman who not only wants to fuck feministgiant.com/p/the-fuck-it-… #GoodLucktoYouLeoGrande
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Jul 6
So successful has white supremacist patriarchy been at convincing white women like Bette Midler that they’re lucky to live in the U.S. and not Saudi Arabia or Iran, that so many white women didn't pay enough attention to the theocracy that white supremacy was building at home A tweet by Bette Midler that shows a photograph of the Supre
That theocracy at home was being built by white men who look like their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, not the scary brown men with beards, right? feministgiant.com/p/if-amy-coney…
That theocracy right here at home was being built by white women who were their mothers, aunts, sisters and friends; white women who look just like them feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-wh…
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Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
Jul 6
It's good to see many, finally, say "Fuck the Supreme Court."

This isn't the time for politeness or civility. I refuse to be civil w/religious zealots who don't recognize my full humanity; who are denying me the fundamental right of ownership of my body. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-se…
Politeness is capitulation.

There is nothing polite about white supremacist patriarchy and the zealots it has installed on the Supreme Court, who voted against a medical procedure that the majority of people in the U.S. believe should be the prerogative of the pregnant person.
There is nothing polite or civil about patriarchy.

Who benefits from upholding those social codes? Civility, decorum,etc are used to uphold authority--patriarchy, whiteness, wealth, other forms of privilege--and we are urged to acquiesce in service to maintaining that authority.
Read 5 tweets

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