Poppagator, for the record, I want to take this opportunity to say that I recognize that my raising the issue in this thread of singular or plural referents for African American peoples was
off-topic. Though I stand by the points I raised, it was inappropriate to raise those points at that time. I've attempted to apologize to Susan and I hereby apologize to the rest of this thread's readers for changing the discussion topic.

I started reading and posting to this thread as a means of learning more about the custom of affixing the descriptor "blind" to Blues singers' names.

I recognize that my questions/comments about this topic are more in keeping with the Blind Blues Singer thread that Doc John started, though there were comments in this thread-mostly by weelittledrummer-that address the efficacy of using "blind" in Blues musicians' and Blues singers' names.

For the record [no pun intended], I don't like the practice of adding "blind" to the names of Blues-or Gospel-singers/musicians. It seems to me that nowadays, many people who are seeing impaired would take exception to the contemporary use of such names. And I believe they would be right to do so. However, I understand that times & customs and attitudes change, and what folks thought about such a custom in the past may have been different than what folks think about the same custom in the present.

I asked questions about this as a means of ascertaining whether folks in past decades routinely identified artists and non-artists by referencing those people's physical disabilities. It appears that this may have been the case. I gather from your comment and Susan's comment that you noted that it's your position that you believe that early 20th century Blues and gospel artists who were blind didn't have any problem with being referred to by their disability. However, if that was the case, I'm curious about why it was so and whether that cutom was race based [meaning whether "Blind" was only used in the names of Black Blues and/or Black Gospel artists].

Perhaps people did it just because it was the custom. And maybe this custom came about simply because by happenchance some of the best early Bluesmen/Gospel singers were blind, in part because of their talent/skill and also in part because of the reason that Susan gave in her 26 Nov 07 - 11:37 AM post to this thread-
that "itinerant musician" was one career open to blind people".

Given the stellar reputation of certain blind Bluesmen/Gospel singers, maybe other vision impaired Blues/Gospel singers took to marketing themselves as blind to piggyback on this reputation and help themselves be better known to people who might attend their concerts...

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Again {and this directed to all those reading this thread} I apology for my part in the exchange in this thread that Poppagator called a "catfight".

I'm still interested in learning more about the topic of blind Blues singers and will continue to read-and perhaps will continue to post to this thread.

Best wishes,

Azizi