In reply to John Jack.

I definitely agree with you. The Rocky Road to Dublin scene can be read as finding community and connection through music, regardless of heritage, but only out of context with the rest of the movie and Ireland's specific connection to Whiteness.

Yes, all the people of all the nations are singing and dancing together, but it's a false brotherhood. When Rennick is initially trying to get into Club Juke he says, "can't we all just be people tonight? all brothers?" but as Chuck pointed out throughout this post, there are several very, very good reasons that they cannot, in fact, be brothers. "But we also know unequivocally, more than the characters themselves do, that these strangers must not be let inside," we know this because their version of brotherhood is a consuming one, an assimilation that devours, and it's a dangerous one—the brotherhood is contingent upon the white people in question feeling safe, secure; white folks can turn on a dime and cause all sorts of trouble for black folks when they feel slighted or just to take a big pile of cash outta some blues man's pockets.

We have to consider also that these are not just white folks, but Irish folks. Rennick says at the end "these same words were used by the Catholics to erase my people's heritage," which is true, but that was a real long time ago. Many Irish people—as is often discussed as a way of minimizing the brutality and horror of chattel slavery—came to America as indentured servants, prisoners, or refugees. These Irish were "free" in the sense that they were not slaves, but they were a member of an oppressed ethnic class. The history of the Irish assimilation into Whiteness is a long one ( I recommend Noel Ignatiev's How the Irish Became White for further reading ) but, essentially, there was a time when there was great racial solidarity between Irish and Black communities in America. When the first American police forces rose out of the slavecatchers, they were often hired from Irish communities—Irish people were seen as just White enough to be willing to defend their position in the racial hegemony of Colonial America. In order for the Irish to become White, they perpetuated violence against Black people.

In this context, it's hard to read this assimilation of Black sharecroppers into Irish music/vampirism as anything other than sinister, the consumptive force of Whiteness perpetuating further racial inequity & corrupting Irish heritage in service of that particular form of violence. This is in sharp contrast to Sammy's calling up the past and the future, which does include non-Black artistic traditions, but as equals rather than subordinated figures. As the Chinese dancer wheels across the juke's floor, the music takes on a slightly Chinese timbre, if only for a moment. The Chows are a part of the Black community, and their music blends in with Sammy's. Sammy's music really is brotherhood, is connection. Rennick's music is control, domination, and erasure.