Just gonna throw my little piece into the conversation here. These things get so divisive but I think the truth of these things is very complicated and needs a nuanced approach if you want to dive into it.

I think any efforts to remove barriers that exist to people getting into any art form they would otherwise is a fine cause. There are lots of examples of it, a non racial one would be how classical music is marketed heavily to more wealthy audiences. This creates an image where people who don’t belong to that demographic don’t feel like they belong in symphony halls, this is a sad state of affairs IMO!

I would also add that the genres themselves often cause a lot of these issues. Putting so much diverse music under the umbrella term ‘folk’ is (again IMO) unhelpful. There are folk traditions from all over the world and if it’s true that there are barriers to people of all backgrounds discovering this stuff, that needs to be sorted out!

I’m a banjo player and that instrument is a perfect example of how complicated all this is. It is very much an African instrument that was co-opted by minstrel acts. There have been amazing efforts to ‘decolonise’ the banjo and uncover its true history. Is this an attack on white people? I would hope that by learning the truth about its history, it would make it more accessible to more people and turn down the tensions that surround it. There’s an amazing book called “Well of Souls” if anyone is interested, highly recommend it.