I also want to address several other points before I leave this conversation:

Early on in this discussion, Shambles mentioned a person being called "White trash". For the record, I consider that term to be offensive, and certainly recognize that Black people can be guilty of playing the race card as well as non-Black people.

With regard to playing the race card, I think that it would be helpful to add this information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_card :

"Playing the race card is an idiomatic phrase, referring to an allegation raised against a person who, the accuser feels, has unnecessarily brought the issue of race or racism into a debate so as to obfuscate the matter. It is a metaphorical reference to card games in which a trump card may be used to gain an advantage. The allegation tends to stir up controversy.

The phrase is used in two contexts. In the first, and more common, context, it alleges that someone has falsely accused another person of being a racist in order to gain some sort of advantage. An example of this use of the term occurred during the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, when critics accused the defense of "playing the race card" ... in trying to present Mark Fuhrman as a racist and thus not a reliable witness against Simpson...

In the second context, it refers to someone exploiting prejudice against another race for political or some other advantage...The use of the southern strategy by a political candidate is said by some to be a version of "playing the race card", such as when former senator Jesse Helms, during his 1990 North Carolina Senate campaign ran an ad showing a black man taking a white man's job, intended as a criticism of the idea of racial quotas. The ad was interpreted by many people as trying to play to racist fears among white voters."
-snip-

It may not be necessary, but I feel compelled to state that I have not nor will I play the race card on Mudcat or elsewhere.

**

Bill D said "It's fine to learn about one's heritage and to honor it...but to emphasize it and wear it like a chip on the shoulder gets tedious."

I agree. However, and I don't believe that this specifically refers to Bill D, there are times when a person's discomfort with a point might lead him or her to say that the point is being over-emphasized when it may not be. After all, who determines when a point is being overemphasized?

In online conversations people can't note the race or ethnicity of the 'speaker'. Imo, in these conversations, identifying your race or ethnicity can be helpful as it can add context and/or validity to your remarks.

Let me also address the issue of referring to race/ethnicity in the context of collecting and documenting rhymes and folks songs:
I strongly believe that it is important for collectors to document as much demographical information as they can about the examples of songs & rhymes they are collecting.

My primary area of interest on Mudcat is children's rhymes.
I believe that many collectors-including Iona And Peter Opie to name two highly respected collectors whose work I respect and treasure-have been remiss in not sufficiently documenting the race & ethnicity of their informants. I believe that is to the detriment of this research. I say this because I believe that there definitely appears to be differences in the types of children's rhymes {not just the variantions of a specific rhyme}, and differences in the manner of performing specific rhymes African Americans and White Americans {in general} perform. There also appears to be differences in the meaning of specific words or phrases in these rhymes. Furthermore, the etymological origins meanings of specific words and phrases may be lost if the demographics of the informants of these rhymes was not documented along with the rhyme. However, given the contentiousness of the subject of race, and people's concerns that to even mention race might lead them to be accussed of over-emphasizing race, I can understand why informants {and partipants in online discussiona}are usually reluctant to include information about their race along with other demographical information.

All this to say, when I believe it is appropriate in online discussions, and for the purposes of as fully as possible documenting demographical information about rhymes I collect, I will continue to mention race.