Add me to the number here who have said they appreciate, and would miss, Azizi's informed and perceptive posts to Mudcat threads. And not only as a representative black voice, but as an intersting and edifying contributor on many topics, and as a good friend. On the other hand I can understand how being "one person who publicly acknowledges her or his Black racial identity on this forum" can be wearisome after five years. I've often wondered why a forum dedicated to Folk and BLUES music hasn't attracted more Black people to participate.
   Suibhne O'P, in your last post you said of the people who sang the song and gave the Oy Veh response "My reaction was a personal one, and certainly not a righteous one, and God knows the perpetrators are some of the finest human beings I've ever met in my life. My point was not to out them as racists, which they most assuredly are not (nor yet are they morons)". I would think that that being so, it would have been easy enough to explain to them why you found it offensive without being confrontational. Something similar happened to me. A good friend plays in an Alt-country band that we go see regularly. They had a guy sit in with them on guitar and front them on a few of his own songs one night. When he did a song called "Towel Headed Trucker" my wife and I walked out. The next time I talked to my friend I explained why we had done so. I don't know if it did any good but the only time since then that the guy sat in, he didn't do that song. Ironically, the dude's previous song was one he wrote based on a message of tolerance professed by the Preacher character from "The Grapes of Wrath".