What does the racial slur 'coon' mean?

Question

I think this word is short for racoons right? But why did people use this term when they wanted to insult a black person? Can any one explain this racial insult without being insulting but informative?

Answer 1

Fortunately, those who predicted you'd inspire a bunch of disgusting replies to your academically motivated question were wrong.

The person above who mentioned a music fad, no doubt had things backwards, as the fad was probably named for the slur, not vice versa.

You're getting somewhat of a variety of closely related answers, which I suspect are more or less on the mark.

If you're really interested, you might do some web searches, starting with "dictionary of American slang" -- though I'm not sure whether it deals with ethnic slurs.

As this is a question of etymology (word origins), you could try a search that includes that word and the phrase "ethnic slurs" or 'coon' itself, and see if you get something.

I'm sure there are reputable sites that cover this sort of thing. It's also possible that no one knows the exact derivation. These things are informal, and linguists have to do a fair amount of guess-work.

Answer 2

Coon Definition

Answer 3

Define Coon

Answer 4

"A coon is a black actor or actress, who takes roles that stereotypically portrays black people. They think theyve made it but they are slaves to the same images. A.k.a sellout
It comes from the term baracoons (a cage), where they used to place Africans, who were waiting to be sent to America to be slaves. They had no idea of this, so some of them were even eager waiting in the baracoons."

I'm sharing this from the Urban Dictionary. This is actually where the name came from. Not raccoons. Clever comparison though. Not accurate.

Answer 5

It is a racial slur stemming from the word baracoon which was a cage like thing that was used to transport African slaves to America.

Answer 6

jim darwin is very astute,, please consider your future question carefully before posting,, as for your answer,, racoonsare lil thieves they will open your fridge if they can get in and have been known to steal shiny objects like ravens,, thus the 'coon' slur refers to blacks as thieves.....dune coon is a slur against pakistani or any middle eastern country it is believed that anyone from there lives in a desert..its really a horrrible sayings

Answer 7

Coon means a black person!

Answer 8

They have a lot of names for us. back then that was just one of the ones that was frequently used. i don't believe it is short for raccoon.

i don't think that this is a bad question, in fact it's very interesting.

But notice, the comments that are trying to "stifle" the situation.


There is nothing wrong with trying to get information about our past.

Answer 9

Your exactly right, 'coon refers to raccoon.
I think it had to do with the relation that a raccoon (being of dark colouring) is hard to see at night. Some insensitive people in our history had made the same observation of a person or people with a darker complexion.

It could also refer to the (false) belief that African-Americans like raccoons are thieves by nature.

A guess, only.

Answer 10

Best answer I have heard is that it relates to the dark skin and dark eyes. Racoons have dark eyes and dark circles around those eyes. Next best answer has to do with the Japanese and the term "coolie" witch is a slave. Add the word ***** to coolie and then hyphenate it and you get the word coon. I think they may have answered this question in the film "Bamboozled" which is currently for sale at Target. I could be wrong though.