White people strum banjos, have fun. Fretting ensues at University of Sheffield:
Obviously, activities that are chiefly indulged in by white people – in this case, folk singing – must be deemed suspect and found problematic with great urgency, and then probed for hidden wrongness. At taxpayer expense. And all this scholarly rigour ain’t cheap, you know…
Behind this mannered waffle is the weird implication that devotees of folk music are somehow, simply by existing, excluding racial minorities. Shooing them away. Though, as so often, details on this point are neither obvious nor forthcoming.
Still, perhaps we can look forward to an academic interrogation of classic car shows in Nottinghamshire as some heinous bastion of “white-centricity.” Another item on the list of Things That Must Be Decolonised And Morally Corrected.
“Our aim,” say our tearful academics, “is to break down the barriers for people to get involved in folk music. Opening up the genre to different audiences.”
Different audiences. Not the audience that folk music actually has, mind, the one it attracts and which is arrived at via choice and musical inclination. And again, no actual barriers to participation are specified. But the audience is nonetheless all wrong, apparently.
Oh dear,
I like folk music, and have a fairly extensive collection. I also occasionally attend a classic car show with my ’65 TBird. I suppose therefore I am beyond redemption.
Good.
Just for the record, I didn’t attend the University of Sheffield. I was at Queen Mary, London.
CBC did the same thing as the folkies — abandoned their traditional (white, older) audience to go whoring after a younger, browner audience. Didn’t work for the CBC and it won’t work with the folkies, hey nonny nonny no.
Non-whites should tread with care before culturally appropriating banjo music. It is extremely unpopular with most folks who don’t play. The banjo is unfairly branded as a favourite instrument of mentally handicapped people – largely because it had a leading role in the film Deliverance.
Banjo jokes abound – a couple of examples:
Banjos make great kindling for an accordion fire. And, did you know that if you keep a banjo capo on your dashboard you are permitted to park in a handicapped spot?
If folk music is white … then what’s punk music? And what about the white punks on dope!? Mom and dad live in Hollywood. They’ll hang themselves when they get enough rope … or get enough white guilt shoved down their throats.
https://youtu.be/-Zhmg0tfuXE?si=dO788bY0I86mxhjX
Well-Intentioned Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mr3BdadVac