"We accept and admire the African-American striving to determine and adopt "roots" to bolster identity and self worth."

That is the most hilarious and offensive comment I've read on here. The diaspora has created some of the finest, most widely loved, responsive music that exists, from minstel traditions, blues, soul whatever. Africans were shipped off round the world, what are they expected to do, explore West Africa's music and claim kin like some cheesy book worm?

"Why is it that so many reject the idea that the English could have roots or seek to revisit and preserve them? Why is the objection directed virtually only at the English?"

With the empire England became an atomised country plying its trades across the globe. The globe fed back in, inevitably. Nobody's rejecting anything. There's choice and people make it. English music as I suggested is very regional, it doesn't have a single well spring. What's wrong with recognising that instead of shoehorning it into some artificial national boundary?