Reflections on my lexicon
For a couple days over the holidays, some friends of mine asked me to keep an eye on their cat, Shakespeare. Shakes is a mammoth cat, more animate ottoman than feline, but it wasn’t until I saw his special food that I realized he was a specific breed – a Maine Coon Cat.
And since then, ole’ Shakes has had me thinking.
I’ve been thinking about an “uncle” I used to have. He was the brother-in-law of my father’s second wife, so no whiff of blood relation but someone I considered family on those odd weekends and summer vacations I’d spend with my father.
Truth is, I’ve forgotten his name. I haven’t spoken to that side of my family in years, and it is remarkable how swiftly names and faces and times start sliding away when their memories aren’t refreshed by shared narrative.
He’s also many years dead, eaten alive by a host of different cancers right about the time I graduated high school. A career in asbestos installation, and later removal, will do that to you.
He looked like a cross between Jerry Lewis and R. Lee Ermey, like the aging sound guy for a rockabilly band. Jet black pomped hair, horse face, and teeth that grew impossibly long and yellow when he smiled.
Oh, and, like most of that side of the family, he was racist.
Because of him, I can’t say, even in my head, the word “coon” without dragging out the oooo and adding a touch of twang. It was the punchline to some joke he told me one summer, waiting in front of a small country store for my father to come back from buying smokes. I was standing next to him, and he delivered it leaning down over his shoulder toward me, smiling long and yellow.
TBO and I have gone back and forth a bit about the n-word before, him saying he found “n*****” more insulting than “nigger”, me saying I just don’t like using the word, even just writing it write now, and every time I have used it in my life (except when privately singing along to rap songs, in which case I let it all hang out) it has caught a little in my throat.
But, for me, “coon” is the far more racist term.
I don’t like using the word “nigger” because I grew up being taught it was vulgar and crass, and that is how it sounds on white lips to me. It is a sign of ignorance.
“Coon” isn’t about ignorance, it is conscious, intentional racism. There is this belief that racism is simply ignorance, as though through exposure and familiarity alone we will all hold hands and sing spirituals together. And surely that is sometimes the case. I’d be willing to take the leap that the white kid that uses “nigger” is more reachable, more teachable, than the kid that uses “coon.”
I recognize that all of this is just because of my personal lexicon (an idea Kundera explores to lovely effect in The Unbearable Lightness of Being). And that the effect of our personal lexicons is inescapable. Otherwise I’d be able to let go of this nagging feeling that my friend’s cat is vaguely racist.
And since then, ole’ Shakes has had me thinking.
I’ve been thinking about an “uncle” I used to have. He was the brother-in-law of my father’s second wife, so no whiff of blood relation but someone I considered family on those odd weekends and summer vacations I’d spend with my father.
Truth is, I’ve forgotten his name. I haven’t spoken to that side of my family in years, and it is remarkable how swiftly names and faces and times start sliding away when their memories aren’t refreshed by shared narrative.
He’s also many years dead, eaten alive by a host of different cancers right about the time I graduated high school. A career in asbestos installation, and later removal, will do that to you.
He looked like a cross between Jerry Lewis and R. Lee Ermey, like the aging sound guy for a rockabilly band. Jet black pomped hair, horse face, and teeth that grew impossibly long and yellow when he smiled.
Oh, and, like most of that side of the family, he was racist.
Because of him, I can’t say, even in my head, the word “coon” without dragging out the oooo and adding a touch of twang. It was the punchline to some joke he told me one summer, waiting in front of a small country store for my father to come back from buying smokes. I was standing next to him, and he delivered it leaning down over his shoulder toward me, smiling long and yellow.
TBO and I have gone back and forth a bit about the n-word before, him saying he found “n*****” more insulting than “nigger”, me saying I just don’t like using the word, even just writing it write now, and every time I have used it in my life (except when privately singing along to rap songs, in which case I let it all hang out) it has caught a little in my throat.
But, for me, “coon” is the far more racist term.
I don’t like using the word “nigger” because I grew up being taught it was vulgar and crass, and that is how it sounds on white lips to me. It is a sign of ignorance.
“Coon” isn’t about ignorance, it is conscious, intentional racism. There is this belief that racism is simply ignorance, as though through exposure and familiarity alone we will all hold hands and sing spirituals together. And surely that is sometimes the case. I’d be willing to take the leap that the white kid that uses “nigger” is more reachable, more teachable, than the kid that uses “coon.”
I recognize that all of this is just because of my personal lexicon (an idea Kundera explores to lovely effect in The Unbearable Lightness of Being). And that the effect of our personal lexicons is inescapable. Otherwise I’d be able to let go of this nagging feeling that my friend’s cat is vaguely racist.
posted by JJisafool at 11:34 AM
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