These stereotypical views held by society about African American/or Black people as a whole are being socially engineered since the founding of America. Stereotypical Image : 1940s Postcard I may be a little shaver --but I got mah eye on somethin big! Description & History of the Coon Caricature. The coon caricature is one of the most degrading and insulting of all anti-Black caricatures. The name itself, an abbreviation of raccoon, is dehumanizing. The coon was portrayed as a lazy, easily frightened, inarticulate, good -for-nothing buffoon. Although he often worked as a servant, was not happy with his status. He was, simply, too lazy or too cynical to attempt to change his lowly position. The coon caricature was born during American slavery. Slave masters and overseers often described slaves as slow, lazy, and wants pushing. The master and the slave operated with different motives: the master desired to obtain from the slave the greatest labor, by any means; and the slave desired to do the least labor while avoiding punishment. Slaves resisted slavery in a variety of ways, including running away, and by use of physical violence. More often, however, they engaged in practical day -to -day acts of resistance called “silent sabotage”. They worked slowly, performed their tasks poorly, “accidentally” broke tools, faked illness, pretended not to understand orders, and sometimes pilfered items (usually food) from the master. Slave masters attributed the slaves poor work performance to an inherent inferiority that manifested itself in what they called “shiftlessness”, and in general stupidity. It is thus ironic that, in trying to create a small space of personal freedom, Black behavior provided what Whites considered to be evidence of Black inferiority. This perception was incorporated into the Coon caricature, along with extremely exaggerated physical characteristics, including big red lips, big feet and ears, and bulging eyes. Beginning in the 1830s, a distinctly American form of theater began to emerge called the minstrel show, consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by Whites in blackface (a makeup made from burnt cork). Minstrel shows were a send up of Black culture. They existed to portray Blacks in all of the various caricatures of them for the benefit of mostly White audiences. The coon caricature was one of the stock characters of the minstrel show. Audiences laughed at the ignorant, lazy, slow - talking fool who avoided work and other responsibilities. With African Americans freed by the Civil War, minstrel shows transformed the coon into a comic caricature of the emancipated Black, either a Zip Coon or an Urban Coon. Zip Coons were urban Black dandies, who put on airs by dressing up fancy in imitation of affluent Whites. The humor was in the situational irony. The character was ignorant of his foolish appearance. He thought he was as smart as Whites, but his frequent misuse of language and application of warped logic was humorously pathetic. Urban Coons had similar characteristics but also engaged in gambling, dice, and the frequent use of razor blades for solving petty squabbles with other coons. The minstrel coons ultimate goal was leisure. For him, that was time spent strutting, styling, fighting other coons, avoiding honorable vocations, eating watermelons, and engaging in general buffoonery. If the coon was married, he avoide his domestic responsibilities, argued with his wife, and ultimately allowed her to dominate him. The Coon caricature inspired a short-liv but intense genre of music around the turn of the 20th century (discussed in a separate section), both in sheet music and in the develo recorded music industry. Minstrel shows began to decline in popularity around the beginning of the 20th century (replaced by vaudevill and was dead as a form of professional entertainment by 1910, although amateur minstrel shows continued to be performed by local theater and high school productions until the 1960s. By the time the coon made the transition from minstrel shows to film and other fo of popular culture, he was for many White Americans an actual racial type. It was not uncommon for Whites to distinguish between “Niggers” (Coons and Bucks) and “Negroes” (Toms and Mammies), with both terms used in the popular culture. READ MORE OF THE HISTORY HERE: authentichistory/diversity/african/3-coon/1-history/index.html
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 16:52:57 +0000
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