Yeah, watch this, all the way to 36:37 hell, the whole “What is a Coon” section (timecoded for your ease!) and then stay the fuck out of my inbox if you rly think coon is a slur, foh. Suburbanite take.
I’ll even sum it up for you, 'cause you’re giving me real ‘sum up’ vibes right now: it is not a slur, it is a label, the same way union members label scabs, the same way a woman will label a pick-me, the same way a skater will label a poser. Your take is either Donald Glover-goofy or straight up white; and while I’m not going to waste the time trying to diagnose it, it’s not welcome around me.
I think this actually highlights the issues with using that term here - within the context of black american history and culture it’s a label derived from people who betray their own interests by appearing in minstrel shows, like calling someone an Uncle Tom or Kapo, but in white american history and culture it’s just a slur for all black people derived from blackface and minstrels shows, like the n word. While your username is pretty great, I can tell you for certain that usernames aren’t necessarily true, so most posters won’t know whether you’re using it as a black or white person, and will only be familiar with the white context. Like, we all know why South Park thought it was so very funny to have Cartman be a raccoon themed superhero, but here in europe you don’t really encounter much black american culture, so you just see the exported racist meaning.
but in white american history and culture it’s just a slur for all black people derived from blackface and minstrels shows, like the n word.
You’ve actually struck upon a discussion point I had with Othello where if I’m honest, I don’t even regard the crackers that misuse it. Crackers misuse all of our vernacular, from the top down; so when it’s in their mouths, I consider it just another display of flagrant ignorance that shouldn’t be acquiesced to with regard to social settings. I mean shit, look at what white Tik-Tokers did to “gyatt”. Look at what 4chan’s been doing to “woke” since they found out about the Green Book. Letting crackers dictate what words we can and cannot say is allowing for the same kind of social colonialism they’ve spent 400 years pulling in the physical.
Like, we all know why South Park thought it was so very funny to have Cartman be a raccoon themed superhero, but here in europe you don’t really encounter much black american culture, so you just see the exported racist meaning.
While this here’s a fair enough point to raise, that’s when I’d expect someone to actually do their research; to do some investigation. ‘No investigation, no right to speech’ is and has been my creed since I started reading Mao; and it’s very easy to go back through my history, see all the threading I’ve been doing in Lemmygrad’s Black spaces, how I’ve interacted in c/em_poc, the diction in general, and come to more or less an understanding. You’re not wrong that usernames aren’t necessarily always true; but at that point, that’s where I see the would-be interrogator as having a further duty to perform that I don’t think was done here, neither between the guy who obviously sent those reports in, or the mods who first responded.
Thanks for the clarification. I’d only ever seen the term used as an inter- (rather than intra-) racial term, and as such it always sounded really nasty. Now that I think about it, the term “Oreo” isn’t seen as super offensive, but it clearly developed as slang the same way that nickname for a crafty animal did.
Without looking at your profile, it would have been very hard to tell on its own whether the comment was punching down or punching up.
Maybe if I wasn’t such a cocoa-butter crême fraiche praline I would have had a familiarity with the other usage. But I think you definitely made a positive addition to the discourse.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
