It's quite possible to trace historical racial roots without being racist. The trick is to appreciate all races and cultures while studying those of particular interest to yourself.

Who cares if someone's tracing black influences on music, or aryan, or celtic, or romanic influences? It's history. History contains a hell of a lot of racism but that doesn't mean that studying history or even parts of history makes one racist by itself! It's only claiming that one race is superior to others and trying to stamp out or opress the other races that makes racism.

Studying the roots of music is studying the roots of music, not saying that any of those roots are better than the others!