Just discovered this thread, you've now gone past the point I want to make, but I'll make it anyway. I saw Johnny Silvo at a folk club 23 years ago with my then-wife, who is black. We were both acutely embarrassed at Silvo's between-song patter, making extremely racist remarks about himself and other black people a la Charlie Williams (whose era was really 10 years previous and by then thankfully outdated). This was not subtle irony, as we then perceived it, it was pandering to the assumed racism of the audience to make himself accepted. We were dismayed and disgusted. Because of this we didn't see him again, so I can't say whether he kept this in his act or whether he learned to accept his black self. My wife did experience some racism at folk clubs, but no more than anywhere else. Unfortunately, the most explicit racist comments we heard were from the mouth of Johnny Silvo, over-doing his wish to be accepted by denigrating himself.