My point, is that the particular children’s counting rhyme is not the issue, the issue is the use of the N word. That rhyme has been in existence all over the world for many centuries, long before American slavery, in many versions and languages. American slave owners and racists bastardized it with the N word, which was in common use at the time. When the word became an offensive racial slur it was mostly abandoned by most Americans, and was no longer a part of the rhyme for the vast majority, and the rhyme became known to the vast majority of children as a benign counting game.

A racist person can substitute the N word in any rhyme, poem, quote, saying, cliche, etc., but it should not diminish or negate the original. Someone could substitute the word into MLK’s dream speech. It is important to eliminate offensive language, agreed. But the current trend is to aggressively seek out any word or phrase that may have been used in a racist context at some point by some group and eliminate the whole thing, rather than excise the racist language out. There is a massive effort today by different segments of the population to redefine huge swaths of the English language to fit particular agendas. I am not going to use plural pronouns to refer to single people, no matter how they identify themselves. And I am not going to stop reciting “fuzzy wuzzy was a bear” to my grandson just because Black people have curly hair.