I admit to flinching when I saw this thread title. Upon opening this thread, the first thing that I noted was the thread starter's name.

Fwiw, Sule Greg Wilson and I grew up in the same city. Though I don't believe that I have ever met him, in 2006 Sule contacted me through my website and we exchanged emails. In one of those emails, I invited him to visit & join Mudcat. It may mean nothing at all, but after that email, I never heard from Sule again.

It's possible that Sule still reads and posts to this forum. As a result of a private message that I received, I know there is at least one other African American besides myself who post on Mudcat. That person wrote me that he or she chooses not to identify himself or herself by race. Maybe that person is Sule. Maybe not. I find it interesting that when he started this thread, Sule didn't mention his race. Also, I consider it regrettable that Sule didn't continue to respond to subsequent posts in this thread that addressed concern about the thread's title.

I believe in "different strokes for different folks", but I very much wish that other African Americans, and other Black people, and any other people of color would post on Mudcat and would consider it appropriate & worhwhile to identify themselves by race/ethnicity on threads about race as the perspectives and opinions of African Americans, Black people, people of color may be of particular interest when discussions of race & ethnicity are held.

Though there is no need for me to do so for those who know me here, for those who don't, I'll reiterate my deep seated dislike of the referent "n****r", regardless of who writes and says it. I personally refuse to say it or to spell it out.

That said, I would have been much more disconcerted if this thread just contained variant examples of that song & historical source material data about that song-as interesting reading as I found them-if there had been no discussion of whether & how historical songs with language that are considered offensive by contemporary and/or historical standards. Without that discussion, how would people reading this thread know that some people here consider that term to be-as Big Mick described it-ugly and hateful?

It's my hope that other people of color wouldn't be so turned off by that highly offensive "n word" that they would refuse to read this entire thread. I hope that other African Americans, other Black people, other people of color would not only read this thread-and other Mudcat threads on race and non-racial topics- but that they would join the discussion and start new threads on racial topics and on non-racial topics which would expand the definition of what some folks here consider to be folk music.

In my opinion, Mudcat could greatly benefit from that.