bobad -
I agree that "No one group has a monopoly on the perpetration of atrocity." And I'm not in to playing the mind game of which race committed the most atrocities lately or ever, or which atrocity was the worse lately or ever.

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KT,

As I shared with you by PM, if a singer wanted to share the background of Amazing Grace by way of a brief introduction to this song, I can't see how that would be offensive, unless the singer went on and on and didn't get on with the song.

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GUEST,A

Unfortunately, alot of urban Black kids have heard the word
"N----g" used in rap music or otherwise. I have casually mentioned to elementary children who I work with that "the N word" was used to put down Black people and that some people who don't like Black people may still use it. As far as I'm concerned, this is on a need to know basis.

Now that I think about it, I do recall saying to a group of older kids {3rd-5th graders} that the "eeny meenie miney mo" rhyme used to use the word N---g {I said "the N word"}. I then but people realized that saying that word wasn't nice, and so they changed it to "tiger".

As far as I'm concerned, you pick your teaching moments. What you say when you say it and how you say it {and to whom} are all important. context context context..

Which also speaks to daylia's comment about the use of farmer in that rhyme. Because I'm an city girl and know nothing about Alberta, Canada, I didn't know farmer used in that rhyme was a putdown. So maybe "tiger" is a better choice, but tigers may not think so ;o)