It always amuses me.

So much of American "folk" music, particularly, but not only, the old-timey and ragtime stuff, came from the "minstrel" tradition - which was largely white people coloring their faces black and singing in hokey "darky" dialect, in music halls and such places.

This is historical fact.

But most folkies are good liberals, and have a horror, not only of real racism (which they well might), but of anything that anyone, however oversensitive, might construe as racist, whether so intended or not.

They deal with the contradiction between their liberalism and the history of their music by trying to ignore the whole thing. Sometimes it's fun to rub their faces in it, not to be racist, but just to be contrary.

Peter.