In one of his post to that WW2 thread, Joe Offer wrote "Yeah, I admit I cringe when I see a thread with the term "coon songs" in the title. But no, if a person is posting dozens of songs, I would find it tedious for him/her to post some sort of caution or apology with each one."

-snip-

I agree Joe that I would also find posting some sort of statement about the language used to be "tedious". Note that I didn't say "apology". I have not asked for nor would I ask for people to write any "apologies" for these songs. However, in that WW2 post-in response to Q's comment that "we should correct and move on" that there be some acknowledgement that these examples may contain language that may be considered pejorative and/or culturally insensitive and are presented here for the purpose of folkloric study.

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In that same post to that WW2 thread, Joe Offer also wrote:

"And when somebody posts a song and gives bibliographic information and a date for the song, then I think most of us are intelligent enough to see that the song is being posted for study purposes and not to promote racism."
-snip-

My response is that in my opinion, when people post to Mudcat, they aren't just writing for those people who are actively participating in that discussion, or those people who may be lurking, that is, reading that thread during the time that the posts are written. I believe that Mudcat posters should also be mindful that people can access these threads by posting key words into Internet search engines a week, months, and years after the thread has been archived. Therefore it is very possible that people can read those threads and not readily understand why this forum contains discussions about these types of songs and/or rhymes such as many examples on this thread.
thread.cfm?threadid=6971
'Once in China there lived a great man"

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Joe's last question in that post asked whether we should have to apologize for every song that people might find offensive in the Digital Tradition. Again, I'm not talking about apologies. But I am suggesting that thread starters or one new poster to a thread that includes such dialect or pejorative examples include some type of statement about the reasons for collecting and showcasing such songs.