"Folk clubs being primarily caucasian" - out in the Caucasus that may be truie, if there are folk clubs in places like Georgia and Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"Caucasian" in any other context is a term left over from the racist theories about there being a Caucasian Race and a Mongoloid Race and a Hamitic Race and a Semitic Race and so forth. "White" and "Black" are terms that have the merit of being self-evidently a bit daft, when you look at a crowd of people with all their range of shades of colour - redfaced ranging to darkish olive being described as "white", slightly paler olive ranging to almost jet black all being described as "black."

Terms like "Caucasian" were invented to give a pseudo-scientific gloss to it all. (And no, that's not intended as a knock to moonchild form using the term - I know it's a lot more curtrent in America than it is in other places)

This thread seems to be making people uncomfortable. The point is, if we have a folk scene which is disproportionately "white" in some countries, what kind of reasons might explain this. How can that be a racist question, anymore than it might be a racist question to ask why it is there are disproportionately few black people in the police force in England, or the army?

I'm just a bit doubtful if "white folk music enthusuasts" speculating about it are going to be in a good position to throw that much light on the subject.

But I remember a few years ago when an Irish Club was set up at last in our town. Suddenly, going in there you felt a sense of relaxation that was missing in the other pubs around - which have never been short of a few Irish, with Irish music mostly well liked. But it was different, there was a sense there wasn't going to some oaf cracking Irish jokes, a feeling that people weren't being seen as generic Irish, but as Dubliners and Culchies and London Irish and so forth. And you never had to gve the bar staff lessons in how to pour a Guinness properly.

But whether that kind of thing carries over into a global virtual community like the Mudcat, I just don't know. That's why my initial response to Ed's question was "How do you know that anyway?"