I almost hesitated to use the word "catfight," but once it had occurred to me, couldn't help myself. My excuse (how I justified it to myself) is that all of this discussion is taking place at a site called "mudcat," hopefully making the usage a bit more acceptable, as a sort of pun.

I was and still am fully aware that the word I used has politically-incorrect gender-based implications. I typed it anyway, figuring we're all mature enough, and comfortable enough with each other, to laugh it off.

I believe we have already established that the very common practice of appending the word "Blind" to the front-end of a performer's (or a group's!) name/stage-name was never exclusive to Black artists, although it may have been less commonly used among White ones.

I would also point out that the practice was pretty much restricted to a certain historical era and is no longer common. I'll concede that The "Blind Boys" of both Alabama and Mississippi still perform under their justly-well-established names, but they're hardly "boys" anymore; they're all very old men, and the names of their groups date back to a bygone era. (And, for anyone especially sensitive to potentially offensive identification of individuals, wouldn't the word "boys" be MORE offensive than the word "blind"?)

Since one Ray C. Robinson got himself famous under the name "Ray Charles" ~ and NOT "Blind Ray Charles" or "Blind Ray Robinson" ~ the practice of including the modifier "blind" in strage names seems to have come to an end. Bit that doesn't mean we need to condemn those who followed that practice in earlier years.