1 Well, my hat's off (not a Santa hat) to Professor Hamill! At least she tries to say there's no reason to cancel the song.

If we are to eliminate every song that was ever sung in a minstrel show, we're going to lose a lot of the American folk song tradition. Minstrel shows were actually pretty cool, and why should anybody get ripped up about a little black make-up? 

2 Agreed. And if we eliminate them because they have offensive elements, what else can we eliminate? I've seen black comedians do thinkgs that could be construed as quite offensive to white people. Oh, but that's different I suppose!

3 Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution are we guaranteed freedom from being offended.

4 No we are not. And we have n o right to expect
our tender sensibilities to be protected.