I remember when I know why the cage bird sings
was challenged for the "encouragement to take action
in premarital sex, homosexuality, and the use of
profanity."

        I remember when the Bible was banned and/or
challenged for being "pornography and obscene"
in Alaska and Pennsylvania in 1993.

        I remember when the The Autobiography of
Malcolm-X was challenged in Flordia in 1994--
because it was "racist against white people"

        I remember when Jambo Means Hello: The Swahili
Alphabet was charged with "degrading white
children" although it was a book for white children to
understand the African-American culture much better.

        I remember when Daddy's Roomate was removed
by most libraries by most of the United States---for
"promoting gay and lesbian relationships as appropriate."

        I remember when Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl
has been challenged in Europe and North America for its
"Depiction of the Nazis as 'cruel and heartless'.

        I remember To Kill A Mockingbird has been called
"racist and obscene" because it deals with an African-
American being accused of rape---being removed from
many Canadian lists and taken off of many U.S high
school programs.

        Censor me--censor my books--censor my thoughts--censor
my future at the palm of my hands. Go ahead and censor
my past--my past? you know my past? when my ancestors
where called niggers, spics, crackers, kike, censor my
books when they have taught me about the 6 million--11
million--Holocaust, when slaves were brought to America
in exchange for molasses, the apartheid, the Malcolm-X,
the Dr. King, the Gandhi, the Ottoman Turks that wiped
out a third of the Armenian population in 1915, the AIDS
the needle and the sex that causes AIDS, the war, the
poverty, the guns, the truth.

        Censor me--censor my books--censor my thoughts--censor
the art that has been denied, censor the emotion and the
expression that lies within a photograph, censor System of
a Down, censor Rage against the Machine, censor the color
of my skin, the color of my eyes, the color of my heart, the
expression of my words.

        Censor the Channel Thy Majesty,
                censor the Come on,
                        censor the No nudity,
                                censor the I have witnessed,
                                        censor the Charlie,
                                                censor the common ground,
                                                        censor the Art Politic,
                                                                censor the guerrilla news,
                                                                        censor the dripping blood,

censor me.