The Case Against “Coon”

The term “coon” (short for racoon) stems from American slavery. Traversing from plantations to pop culture, it is based on white society’s idea of Black intellectual inferiority.

When this charge is levied within the Black community of the present day, it’s an accusation that the person is performing anti-Black stereotypes for white people. It has become less about intelligence or being inarticulate, it’s more that the person being called a coon is assumed to be beholden to the white gaze — what white people think about Black people — and are performing minstrelsy for the pleasure of (not only, but especially) white people by mirroring their antiblack attitudes. If you are a coon, you basically sold your soul to the (white) devil.

Every group has its own in-group dynamics of accepting and rejecting members of the community. These dynamics change over time, as I surmise that there is a generational divide in how Black people use “coon” (for example, I’d have to imagine that Black Baby Boomers use the term exponentially more than Gen Z). But as a community, I want to make the case that we should bury the term “coon.” My main points (which are linked) are that it’s a type of shaming that doesn’t change anything and that it prevents us from having deeper, substantive discourse about both the survival and the thriving of the Black community.