Hi Allison, I have not read this book yet, but I heard about it a lot. The purpose of writing is to express our thoughts and emotions about our environment, surroundings, and thing we go through in life. That being said, I believe that it is unjustifiable that the book is banned from certain areas; Angelou simply used the book to express the true reality of what African Americans encountered during that time period. The descriptions of rape, use of profanity, racism, violence, and drug abuse all exemplify the actual part of reality in which the vast majority would like to ignore. I believe that the banning of the book convey that challengers want to get rid of a genuine part in African Americans’ history, and thus I don’t approve of banning