I went to a College in New York City
Earlier this year and saw the list on the wall
of all the words that are not allowed to be said
anywhere on the campus.
these were not the usual four-letter words
that were forbidden in Catholic school
but ordinary common everyday words
that people apparently use without thinking
but have since been blacklisted (racist term)
and therefore, must be racist
the one that really surprise me was the word Oriental
we're not allowed to use that word anymore
part of the litany of terms
colleges claim as colonial,
one more word to the growing list of forbidden text
some enlightened professor somewhere
has declared as offensive
building on the color divide
nothing so obvious is Jim Crow laws
yet obvious equally odious
to the over-sensitive new generation
who can’t possibly tolerate as society
that permits free speech
we all can drink from the same water fountain
use the same bathroom
sit up front in the bus
but we can't say what we want to say
or think what we want to think
Oriental or white
Yet when it comes to admission at this college
Orientals are even less welcome than whites
perhaps they do too well in college entrance exams
and therefore, not entitled to get a language lesson
from these arbitrators of good and bad words,
who actually believe these are signs of racism
and assume anyone who says any of them
must be a secret white supremist.
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