With regard to 'going ahead and singing the song', which songs do the groups sing and who chooses those songs? This may be a re-introduction of the thorny question "What is folk music?", but
I maintain that race & ethnicity may color this answer.

I am sure that it will - but perhaps a less conscious approach to this is the way forward. The music first perhaps.

Ironically myself and perhaps Greg may nearly always choose a song or a style that is not originally of our own ethnicity or race. I may even choose to play it on the banjo.