McGrath,

I think that (and this is conjecture) that the ewarly pictorial racist stereotypical cartoon of black people resembles that of a raccoon. I also believe that this gross distortion bears no real resemblance to any black people I have ever seen.

An offensive term is still an offensive term because it demeans people because of their race, culture or lifestyle. But the tunes that contain these words are often infectious, historically significant as music and can be altered successfully without hurting their initial expression. The pateroller song may have an offensive intent as say the Nazi drinking songs or ugly parodies. I think intent has a lot to do with the utility of a song. If the intent is not offensive, than an alteration will not change that.

Frank