It don't think much of these songs at all. They were obviously made at a time when science and the rights of man were not as well protected as today and the U.S. Constitution not as strongly enforced.

I've been doing quite a bit of research over the last couple of years into the songs of 19th century New York music saloons and I find that the "delineators of Ethiopian characters," as blackface performers were rather pompously called, almost invariably did uncomplimentary Irish, German and other ethnic songs as well. This was at a time when Irish were considered to be a separate race, 1/2 step up from blacks but a couple of flights of stairs below Anglo-Saxons. The Germans were perceived as fairly solid citizens and usually only had the "mickey taken" out of them over linguistics.

I once heard a guy say, "Some people insist on conforming to stereotypes." I though that was humorous. Are there drunk Irish, jiveassing blacks and dictatorial Germans. Yes. Are they all that way? No. Does further humanity to call attention to stereotypes in song. Probably not.