First of all Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates is a story about a poor kid who wins an ice skating contest on cheap skates, and his prize is a pair of silver skates. The story of the little Dutch boy who saved Holland by sticking his finger in the dyke is a different story altogether.
The fact that it is a European story is not the point. I am not arguing that only European stories should be told. My point was about the banning of the term stickball, which is a variant of baseball typically played in northeastern cities. IIRC you can see a game of stickball being played in one of the Godfather movies, for example. As a Kentuckian, stickball is pretty far from my daily life, but it never bothered me to learn about is existence. After all, nobody was shoving the idea down my throat that I was inferior because I wasn't a cracker jack stickball player. Just because something is regional doesn't mean that it is offensive.
