Scotch Snaps and Southern Music

I need to tell you one story in order to tell you another.

The Czechoslovakian composer Antonin Dvorak moved to the United States in 1892, and immersed himself in American music while composing his New World Symphony.  Although he was fascinated, inspired, and moved by traditional Southern folk music, Dvorak complained that he simply couldn’t tell the difference between Scottish music and Negro music.  Wait, what?  How could a professional musician and composer get those two things mixed up?  The answer, of course, is found hiding behind our 21st  century misconceptions as to what 19th century music must have sounded like.  And most Americans have a terrible tendency to separate Southern musical culture into social and political categories, which leads to obviously ridiculous contradictions.