I don't think anyone would argue with the idea that racial prejudice is a part of American history which is reflected in many of it's songs. To some degree each song that employs it on whatever level is bound to be offensive.

This being said, it becomes more complicated than this. Some will take offense as did members of the militant black community at Louis Armstrong considering him a "tom" which is to my mind the height of intolerance. He was reputed to say in his defense,(and I'm paraprhasing) "I give my contribution to the NAACP every year. If someone busts my chops, they don't get it."

OK, there are certain songs that are riddled with offensive racial content. The other side to this is that along with the attitude of racism, there is a tremendous undercurrent of respect for the talent and contribution of African-Americans and many of these racist songs (maybe not all) are subliminal attempts to offer a tribute, bizarre as this might seem. When the ODJB made it's first jazz recording in 1917 of the Livery Stable Blues, an enormous hit for it's time and introduced the term Dixieland to jazz music, the song itself was a warmed over "coon" song. Yet, I would venture that no member of the ODJB had anything but the utmost respect for the black New Orleans musicians that they had learned from such as Joe Oliver, Louis et. al. The Livery Stable Blues was a novelty number in which the horns sounded like farm animals. But it has racist lyrics. It put dixieland jazz on the map as a popular music form. As a result, it paved the way for Louis and Joe Oliver to become nationally known.

Alan Lomax presented Leadbelly in prison stripes as a "black convict" with the idea of selling that stereotype to urban audiences at the time. Without this marketing, would anyone have ever known about Leadbelly? Was Alan "wrong"?

Here's another angle for you. How racist is it for a white rock and roll group or blues musician to attempt to imitate a black music group? I hear young white singers attempt to sound black and to me it grates as fingernails on chalkboards in the way that I remember the offensive dialects of the minstrel shows. At the same time, I also recognize that there is an unspoken tribute here which compounds the problem. We're all racist to some degree I guess and we're all responsible. The answers are not about banning music but presenting music in a healthy, reasonable and appropriate context so that it communicates the values that most of us cherish, that ALL men and women are created equal.

So it's time for all of us to dismount the Liberal High Horse. BTW, there is a so-called "Christian Right" and in my view, they are neither.

Frank