I have friends who dislike Andy Warhol with a passion. They consider the late artist a fraud and a museum in his honor a concession to bad taste and hucksterism. I don't agree.

When friends from out of town visit, a trip to the Andy Warhol Museum is usually high on the itinerary -- and happily so. Even an esteemed colleague who dislikes Warhol with a passion is compelled to go to the Andy Warhol Museum several times a year because too many of his very cultured friends refuse to let him get away with a total boycott. Friends don't let friends wallow in their philistinism.

Perhaps I'll feel the same way about Stephen Collins Foster someday, but for now -- no can do. I'm an American who has managed to remain indifferent to Stephen Foster's music at best while hostile to him on ideological grounds.

As a non-native Pittsburgher, I'm embarrassed by all the hoopla surrounding the 19th-century composer, but grudgingly recognize the legitimacy of celebrating his accomplishment. This is his hometown. He was born in what is now Lawrenceville and is buried here.

Before I ever heard his name, I could probably rattle off the lyrics to a dozen Stephen Foster songs either in full or in fragments. His songs were as ubiquitous in my elementary school auditorium as the Beatles were on the radio at the time.

Unlike those who feel Warhol got away with something because of the shallowness and naivete of his admirers, I acknowledge Foster's genius for crafting memorable songs. Having said that, I cringe at the memory of singing "Oh! Susanna," "Camptown Races" and "Old Folks at Home" as a child at school under the energetic direction of well-meaning white teachers with enormous sweat stains under their arms:

"I come from Alabama wid my banjo on my knee / I'se gwine to Lou'siana my true lub for to see / It rained all night the day I left, the wedder it was dry / the sun so hot I froze to def / Susanna, don't you cry..."

Or this classic ditty: "Way down upon the Swanee Ribber / Far, far away / dere's wha my heart is turning ebber / dere's what the old folks say / All up and down de whole creation / sadly I roam / Still longing for de old plantation / and for de old folks at home..."

Admittedly, we didn't sing it in the Negro dialect Foster wrote it in, but we might as well have. We weren't encouraged to think about the lyrics or what the songs meant. Our job was to learn them so we could all -- black kids and white kids -- sing them together.

Someone tried to explain to me once that Stephen Foster was actually a secret abolitionist who was critical of the racial attitudes of his day. I'm sorry, but "Uncle Ned," "Dolcy Jones," "Oh! Lemuel," "Nelly Bly" and "Ring, Ring de Banjo" were not sly critiques of racism the way Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was a critique of the racial caste system of his day. Perceptive critics understood immediately that Twain's novel, though steeped in Negro dialect and unflattering terms about blacks, undermined white moral authority.

I'll go to my grave defending Mark Twain and extolling his genius and humanity. I'm not so sure about Stephen Foster, though he was probably less of a scoundrel than the average Pittsburgher at the time.

And let's face it -- the statue of Stephen Foster sitting by the Carnegie Library in Oakland is an open sore. Foster, who somehow managed to die penniless despite having written much of the American song catalog, seems like a nobleman gazing stoically at an elderly, barefooted black man sitting at his feet and playing a banjo for his amusement.

I'm not suggesting that the statue be destroyed, but I sure wouldn't miss it if it were put on exhibit in a museum next to a "Whites only" water fountain.

I understand that the bulk of Stephen Foster's musical output didn't trade in offensive racial stereotypes. Maybe my problem is that the offensive songs are the only ones that still echo in my head decades after hearing and learning them.

Just to be clear: I would be as offended by an attempt to remove Stephen Foster from the public school curriculum as I am by those who periodically attempt to suppress "Huckleberry Finn."

Foster is an inextricable part of our nation's complex cultural and racial DNA, and kids should learn about him. He's arguably more essential to Pittsburgh's cultural identity than Warhol. But we're routinely critical of Warhol, while Foster continues to sit on a bronze pedestal in Oakland.

Tony Norman's weekly video, the Last Word, is featured exclusively in the Insight section on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.