Yes, I take your point there, Azizi. 'I am black but o my soul is white' is pretty middling hard to stomach nowadays! But of course Blake [with the best will in the world - which was, literally, what he had] would have been Eurocentric. How could he have been otherwise then?

Always very difficult to think oneself back into the thinking of an earlier period. I am always much exercised by the constant iteration of that now unsayable word in Huckleberry Finn, one of the world's greatest novels IMO. We must remember that, at the time the book is set, back from its own time in the real old slavery days of the 1830s, not only Huck & Tom, but Jim himself also, would have used the word absolutely naturally in everyday talk. It would have been the only word they had as referent to the concept it represented.

Another thread has just been revived on the 'DonkeyRiding' shanty; and for purpose of this thread, would draw yr attention to the verse: "Was you ever in Timbuctoo Where the gals are black & blue Roll their arses with a roll&go Riding on a donkey". It's partly for the rhyme, of course, & 'black & blue' is in itself a cliche for bad bruising so might well spring to the mind of a shantyman needing to improvise a rhyme in a hurry to keep the work going: but it might nevertheless be relevant to your thread & you might like to include it in your thinking.