# "Coon(s)" was originally a term for rural white people - I never knew! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 24, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287 "2003-08-24T06:02:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287/1 "2003-08-24T06:02:39Z")
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"](http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin_board/5/messages/626.html) > [@](#): > > 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 [sub]This etymological moment brought to you by Alphabits Cereal.]/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satisfying_Andy_Licious)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287/2 "2003-08-24T08:17:57Z")
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.](http://www.coonass.com/) [Bartleby](http://www.bartleby.com/61/28/C0622850.html) 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. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287/3 "2003-08-24T11:24:31Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287/4 "2003-08-24T16:53:55Z")
So when I drove past [this place](http://www.polkonline.com/stories/042903/pro_coon.shtml) 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.](http://www.floridastatefair.com/cracker.asp?page=cracker) :eek: ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287/5 "2003-08-24T22:22:14Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2003, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287/6 "2003-08-24T22:27:53Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287/7 "2003-08-25T00:38:16Z")
> [@](#): > > “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. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287/8 "2003-08-25T01:37:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*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.](http://www.floridastatefair.com/cracker.asp?page=cracker) :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](http://www.atlantacracker.com/blackcrackers.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287/9 "2003-08-25T02:34:17Z")
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… ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coon-s-was-originally-a-term-for-rural-white-people-i-never-knew/197287/10 "2003-08-25T11:17:07Z")
samclem - your sources are from Northern writers. If they were alive today, Mama Tiger’s parade events would no doubt baffle them.