Back in the day I used to hear adults say certain behavior was obviously learned at coon school because it's nothing that people could pick up through osmosis.
I never paid much attention to it then cuz I knew to stay outta grown folks conversation if I didn't want to get backhanded in the mouth.
There were coonasses and coons and they all must have gone to coon school. And...from the way folks fixed their lips when they referred to either one...I figured out that neither was NOTHING to aspire to be.
People fighting in the middle of the street?
"Where they get that from? Must be coon school cuz that isn't anything you learn just living."
Child failing in school but wearing all the latest expensive clothes?
"Where they get that from? Must be coon school cuz that isn't anything you learn just living."
Drag racing in pickup trucks along the levee drunk with a tailgait full of drunk friends at night?
"Where they get that from? Must be coon school cuz that isn't anything you learn just living."
An old sofa in the yard and folks sitting out there chilling?
"Where they get that from? Must be coon school cuz that isn't anything you learn just living."
And I DISTINCTLY remember things starting to take shape for me in my brain as to what would be normal and what wouldn't be based on what I deduced the definition of coon school to be.
As I get older I realize that a lot of the stuff I was taught isn't necessarily the way I should think but I had so many years thinking that way...it's seriously second nature I guess. I'll think it but, with maturity and my own sense of self, I consider if my thoughts are too harsh and wonder how I could look at the situation differently. And...even as I think I'm growing every.single.day...I still run into situations where the first thing that pops into my head after I witness something REALLY janky is..."He could be the dang DEAN of coon school."
*sigh*
Did you have the same kinda "messages" growing up? Was there a unique distinction made as to what was and what wasn't appropriate for you to do? Even if it was subtle? Do you find that you sometimes think in those terms even though you try your best not to?
Are we all inappropriately stereotypical in our minds when it comes to our own, personal SELF INTEREST?
