How I got pulled into America's National Discussion On Race

Just this week, I was sitting in my easy chair, sipping on my morning coffee reading my paper on my IPad and I notice I have a message in my Facebook Messenger. It's from someone I don't know. It turns out to be the admin from one of the music fan Facebook Pages I follow. She was letting me know that someone reported me for making a racist remark in one of my posts.

I froze in my chair. I've never made a racist remark in my entire life! Or so I thought. Now I'm being accused of making a racist remark on a band page - my favorite band on the planet - that also happens to have six African American members! She went on to say that she didn't think I did this on purpose and was willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. I don't recall what the post was about, but I do know I was referring to something or someone I hadn't seen or heard in a long time, and I was trying to be folksy and I used the phrase, "in a coon's age". 

As someone who makes their living selling books, I literally sell words. I'm also an aspiring writer who knows that words are very powerful and can hurt as much as they can heal and make you laugh. 

I'm very careful to insure that the words I choose mean what I think they mean and I do often look up definitions or the etymology of those in question. Well in this case it never occurred to me that this phrase, which was used back in the early 1800's as a reference to living a long time, would or could ever be construed in a racially derogatory, hateful, and disrespectful manner. Oh how naive I was! 

I was just unwittingly and uncharacteristically thrown into America's deeply divided, troubled and emotionally raw racial dialogue. My first reaction was one of anger. I know the origins of this phrase and I used it correctly. I wanted to strike back and defend myself forcefully telling this person they are wrong! 

Then I got to thinking about something I often feel when I see and hear it in TV interviews, news articles and on social media. 

It goes something like this: If you have to defend something you said that someone else thinks is racist by arguing why you aren't a racist, you just lost your argument. So I figured I'd start here. 

Instead of lashing out emotionally, I decided to do some research, and sure enough I quickly found the evidence. Although I knew that the word 'coon' had been co-opted from it's original meaning, 'raccoon', in the early 1800's to mean a disparaging and highly offensive term for black people, however, from the best I can tell, it never had that same meaning when used in the phrase, '...in a coon's age' by Americans at that time or even today. In England they used the term crow, as 'in a crow's age' and still do. 

It NEVER occurred to me that anyone would interpret it this way so I had nothing to make me question it's use. Until NOW. The very fact that anyone would interpret this in a way that is ugly, offensive, hurtful, insulting or disrespectful is enough for me. I immediately apologized and told the admin that I am deeply troubled and sorry if I made anyone in the group feel uncomfortable or worse, offended and insulted by my naivete. I won't use that term or phrase again.

This really got me thinking about my own upbringing and how my opinions, views, and feelings on race were formed. No one is born a racist. Racism is taught, plain and simple. My family lived in a white, middle-class suburb just north of Chicago. There were no people of color in my neighborhood, or school for that matter. My only real exposure to a multi-cultural experience was going to school with Jewish kids and getting invited to Bar and Bat Mitzvah's and having to put the funny looking hat on my head.  My only exposure to black kids was when we went downtown on field trips and my all white bus would pull up to their all black bus and we'd stare at each other as we waited in lines.

I remember vividly when my Uncle Willie would visit us in the mid to late 1960's with the racial unrest throughout the country, and especially in Chicago, which was only 20 miles away from us, but it might as well have been on the other side of the world as far as I knew. 

He would be into his 3rd or 4th Boiler Maker and we'd all be watching the violence and protests on the 6:00pm news (which was happening daily at that time) and, like clockwork he would start his racist rants calling the participants 'jagaboos' and 'spear chuckers', and of course the 'N' word. Always the 'N' word. It seemed like the adults just laughed (mostly at him), but they didn't stop him, or shut him down. These rants were frequent, and not just by him. They got seared into my young, impressionable brain. 

My parents taught me NEVER to use these terms and to respect all people, however I got to see other things - behaviors, that were just as bad in both of them. My father and his peers (this is how this generation treated women) had a tendency to treat women as totally inferior people, with certain things that were 'beneath' men. Like changing a diaper, doing laundry, or the weekly grocery shopping to name a few. Then it came to work: "No wife of mine is going to work!"  Little did he know how hard she did work raising 7 children, with little help from him! He and his friends and their Country Clubs that wouldn't allow women into various places, positions or even on the golf course unless accompanied by another man. There seemed to be a little bit of Archie Bunker in all of them. Then there was my mother's snide little biting comments about the 'Pollocks' and 'Chinamen' invading her town. And then some of my own siblings, and I'm sure me too, slamming all the 'Dot Heads' taking over the local businesses. Racism isn't just confined to any one race, culture, or people. It seemed OK to say these things. 

As I became more socially and politically aware, I was repulsed and embarrassed about their (and sometimes my) behavior. I worked very hard to try and rid myself of that sort of thinking, and what I learned is that it is so deeply ingrained into my brain that to this day I hear the voices saying those awful things and I have to consciously always be thinking about how to keep it buried. I'm hyper-conscious about this and that's what bothers me so much about this recent experience.


Am I racist? Are we all racist? If the answer to this is yes, what can we do about it?

I have an idea and thought: After much soul searching, I've come to the conclusion that neither you or I get to determine what someone else thinks is offensive, insulting, or disrespectful. Just because I used this phrase correctly and didn't mean to offend anyone with it, doesn't mean I didn't offend, upset or disrespect someone with my words. 

Another example I'll mention is one that is all around me here in the Deep South: the rebel battle flag. When I lived up north as a teenager, I embraced this in my love of Southern Rock because many of my favorite bands used it as a symbol of that rebel music and I didn't understand any of the history of it. When you grow up north of say, Tennessee, they don't spend much time on this in our history courses. Since living in the Deep South I learned that, unlike the etymology of the phrase I used, this symbol always did represent oppression of an entire race, however many, many Southerners define the symbol as one that represents their Southern Heritage. It deeply, and rightly so offends most African Americans regardless of what Southerners believe. 

I agonized over this, and whether I should even try and write about it. I ran it by some dear and trusted friends and family for their input. My dearest and one of my closest friends made one very important suggestion: Just because you might be offended by something I said, it doesn't let you off the hook of why you took offense over it. He pointed out that ignorance on the part of the reader doesn't automatically make me wrong for using the English language correctly and without racial malice or intent, which is what I did. Dialogue means a conversion between two or more people. If anyone is offended by something I say, write or do, let's discuss it.


There are many people who are merely looking for a fight in this era of fake news and politicians lying through their teeth playing fast and loose with facts, statistics, figures and the truth. Ignorance and lack of education doesn't figure into their thinking or reasoning. These people don't get a hall pass here, nor am I suggesting that they do, can, or will.

Here's the morale of my chautauqua: If what we say, write or do comes across as offensive to others, regardless of whether we think it is, we all need to carefully think through what it is we are trying to say. It's really that simple, but not easy. If more people would think about how their words can obfuscate the message, rendering the receiver unwilling or unable to hear it, then maybe, just maybe we could start having meaningful discussions around race, cultural diversity and basic human rights. Dialogue requires two or more people talking to each other.

As Rodney King once so famously said, "Can't we all just get along?"

I'd love to hear your comments, tales, and/or stories regarding your experience.