What we are talking about here is performance of songs, right? Otherwise the discussion has no meaning.

Performance requires an audience. Audiences do not want to feel uneasy, therefore there is no need to perform songs which cause embarrassment. (Some performers are of course unable to detect embarrassment).

So we reserve the racist, sexist and anti-environmentalist songs for when we are doing a gig playing for the "Society of Historians Who Want to Hear Songs Which Wouldn't Normally Be Acceptable, But Which We Want to Hear Anyway"

There are thousands of great songs which are NOT offensive. Why agonize over the few which are ? Folksingers are entertainers, not friggin' missionaries.

Murray