Actually, DMcG, I think it would be much healthier for the people who engage in the many blacking-up traditions around the country to acknowledge, where it exists, the less savoury history and heritage of their practice. At the moment, lots of the groups who black up deny that there were ever any negative racial overtones.

They are the ones who are denying and destroying history. Surely coming to terms with that past, and perhaps examining whether they still think that blacking up is the right thing to be doing in 2007, is the best way forward? To be able to say "this is what we used to do, but this is what we do now" wouldn't deny the history (after all, there will always be the written and photographic evidence for the history of the custom), and would pave the way for an approach in future that's more appropriate to the times we live in, rather than being shackled by some notion of preserving the past.