A complicating factor is that we now have the BNP making efforts to use English folk traditions to win friends (and encourage enmity) and influence people. We have to be wary of those who would try to use the existence of "blacking up" on the part of some dance groups as a way of driving a wedge between us.

But some common sense in this area should be preserved - look at this picture I took at Sidmouth a couple of years ago. I can't really see how anybody could think that this dancer can be seen as trying to come across as some kind of Minstrel inspired parody of a black man.