I'd like to add my vote pro-Stephen Foster. Language IS important, and we should not use it carelessly in a way that offends, but Stephen Foster's lyrics are not the problem. I remember that, as a very young child, when I first heard, "Old Black Joe", I not only loved the song, I loved the man Old Black Joe, and cried for him.

To Jerry Friedan: Good letter!

When the Dodger pitcher Joe Black threw those bean-balls it wasn't because he resented the words of the song, it was because he knew that the players singing the song were doing it because they were racists and looking for a way to express their racism and hurt him. If he hadn't retaliated, he would have been accepting their "insult".

The author of the book, by the way, was Roger Kahn.