Friends, I had hoped that by keeping the focus on music, specifically Minstrel Shows and issues related to them for us as musicians, this thread could accumulate some good historical information, sources, some details about how people may be using this music now, and some interesting viewpoints as musicians.

Now we are going off in another direction, less to do with the music itself, MUCH harder to keep focused nad positive, and really difficult to handle without body language, tone of voice, and actually knowing one another. I say this from some solid experience working on racism issues with people. The issues are too important to use poor tools on them, and there are far better tools than Mudcat to use.

May I suggest that we stick with what had been working in this discussion, avoid quick responses to hot-button statements, and take some time to reflect on what we have posted so far?

Thanks,

~Susan