I stumbled on the following post quite by accident. I am somewhat of a coon connoisseur, so I think it might have been the word coon in the title that caught my eye. Anywhooo, while we are still trying to bridge our racial gap in these divided states of A-merry-ca, I thought it would be interesting to share this blogger's views on racial stereotypes.

I apologize for not knowing the blogger's name, but I will give a link and the name of their site which is "O Hell Nawl".

"Black (specifically for this post - I’m referring to Americans) folk are very diverse - like any other race.

While many of us can dance our azzes off - there are many who can’t catch a beat.
Some of us have never picked up a basketball - and believe it or not there are a LOT of us who have never been to jail or met a pimp. Additionally many of us can’t stand rap, especially in it’s current form.

However, we seem to still be struggling with stereotypical images and ideals and we probably will always be. This began wayyyy back - when some of us would perform for “massa” in the most stereotypical way, entertaining and delighting him and his family.
We found out that it worked for us and many of us kept doing it for financial gain. Some of us, having grown up in a culture of poverty, knew no other way.
Yet, we’re still a diverse people.


If you caught CNN’s Black in American Part II, you’d have seen Tyler Perry’s story.

Tyler is unbelievably successful and drew on a culture of poverty he grew up in and showed the world black folks experiences from that perspective. Of course, many black folks who lived experiences that do NOT necessarily relate to that perspective comprehensively took issue, including myself. I could relate to some parts of Tyler’s works, but some of it - eh, not really. I couldn’t knock the man’s hustle, while I despised the fact that there are white people across the country who may think that Tyler’s works ARE the totality of the black experience. It’s not.


But then again, Tyler has the only black owned studio in the country which was welcomed into existance [sic] by black actors who fought to have roles that weren’t stereotypical.

Irony. Means to an end? Possibly. Sometimes black folks had to shuck and jive to get up OUT and raise their kids to be better than what they had to do. But is it shuckin and jiving when you lived portions of it?

Well, here we go again. The text messaging service (currently being heavily advertised in my area) that provides answers for obscure questions has come under fire:



Is this stereotypical? The black woman neck poppin’ and being loud and indignant about the yaki? [*you must go to the **link to understand the context of this sentence*]

DO white people and other races get loud and indignant too?
Yes.

But in general do we view white women as loud and indignant? No. Do we in general view black women as loud and indignant? Yes.



This is why it’s hurtful when people continue to perpetuate a stereotype that some people view as gospel.

However, it is the TRUTH for some and SOMETIMES.
In my humble opinion, this won’t die down (and admittedly, it has died down in most recent years and different dimensions of the black experience have been shown in pop culture - who remembers when commercials never had a black face. NEVER!) until black people and white people intermingle more.

And that is happening - with or without our consent.

I look forward to it."

Interesting post. Although I am not sure if I am looking forward to more "intermingling" if age old stereotypes are going to persist, and the coons among us continue to jig. Thing is, there are some folks in the majority population who enjoy the jigging, and they go as far as to actually encourage it. You see jigging reinforces certain stereotypes that they enjoy and are comfortable with, and people like to be comfortable. Some black folks like to jig, because it's to their economic benefit. Some white folks, [present company excluded] on the other hand, like to see jigging, because it gives them peace of mind.




**Link to the post and blog here.