"Coon(s)" was originally a term for rural white people - I never knew!

[astro]

I was looking up the origin of the term a “Coon’s age” as in “I hadn’t seen him in a coon’s age”, when I read this little factoid.

In a coon’s age"

As you may know, the “coon” came to mean a whole different thing unrelated to expression “in a coon’s age.” Coon was first a term for a white person from the country, then it became an insulting term for a black person. “A coon’s age” was recorded in 1843 (but I am sure it was in use decades earlier) but the word “coon” didn’t become a racial slur until 20 years later. Here’s an entry on that:

“coon was orignally a short form for raccoon in 1741…then by 1832 meant a frontier rustic, and by 1840 a Whig. The 1834 song ‘Zip Coon’ (better know today as ‘Turkey in the Straw’) didn’t refer specifically to either a White or a Black and the ‘coon songs’ of the 1840s and 50s were Whig political songs. By 1862, however, coon had come to mean a Black and this use was made very common by the popular 1896 song ‘All Coons Look Alike to Me,’ written by Ernest Hogan, a Black who didn’t consider the word derogatory at the time.” From “I Hear America Talking” by Stuart Berg Flexner (Von Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 1976), Page 54

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[Satisfying_Andy_Licious]

Cajuns use “coonass” and it is not racial. It can be a derogatory term for a Cajun, but more often that not it’s sort of the Cajun version of “good old boy.” Note www.coonass.com.
Bartleby defines it as derogatory. Of course it all depends on how you use it.
I knew a Cajun fellow who nearly got fired for using the term in the office. As for the idiotic woman who filed the complaint, I’ll call her merely an ass.

[neutron_star]

Also note that the Cajun slang “coonass” is still very much in use today. I hear it used rather frequently, and I’ve only heard it used by Cajuns themselves in the joking good-old-boy way that Andy notes.

[Annie]

So when I drove past this place in Florida I shouldn’t have choked on my coffee? But then, I thought ‘cracker’ was a term unsuitable for polite company until I went to this exhibit at the Florida State Fair. :eek:

[j.c]

when I was a small child in Louisiana, “coonass” meant cajun and I heard it used in a joking way by people who, in retrospect, were white or mixed and black.

[Ringo]

I hear “coonass” fairly often, and I’ve never heard it used in a particularly dergatory manner. Usually when I hear, it’s used by someone from South Louisiana, often as a self-reference.

[samclem]

“coon was orignally a short form for raccoon in 1741…then by 1832 meant a frontier rustic, and by 1840 a Whig. The 1834 song ‘Zip Coon’ (better know today as ‘Turkey in the Straw’) didn’t refer specifically to either a White or a Black and the ‘coon songs’ of the 1840s and 50s were Whig political songs.

I doubt the generalization that “coon songs of the 1840’s and 50’s” were mostly about Whigs.

I can give you an 1848 one that says
.

Dey may talk ob dandy niggers/But dey neber see dis coon/A prombernading Broadway/On a Sunday afternoon.

And Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852 uses coon to mean a black slave.

If two guys in blackface in 1834 or so, performing before a white audience, and using black dialect, etc. didn’t intend for the word to mean a black, it certainly went a long way towards popularizing it.

[Sternvogel]

*Originally posted by Annie *
**I thought ‘cracker’ was a term unsuitable for polite company until I went to this exhibit at the Florida State Fair. :eek: **

Before the Braves went down to Georgia, the city of Atlanta had a minor-league baseball team known as the Crackers. There was even a Negro Southern League franchise known as the Atlanta Black Crackers.

[Mama_Tiger]

One of the Westbank carnival krewes, the Krewe of Alla, throws special beads every year that say “Alla Coonass.” With great pride, I hasten to add. The friends from elsewhere I’ve given them to really didn’t understand, however…

[j.c]

samclem - your sources are from Northern writers. If they were alive today, Mama Tiger’s parade events would no doubt baffle them.