Title: Coon | Definition of Coon at Dictionary.com
Headings: coon
coon
noun
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coon
noun

Content: In the early 1800s, coon was a nickname for a sly person, likened to the clever shiftiness of the animal. Also in the early 1800s, coon was used as a nickname for a member of the Whig political party, who used the animal as their mascot, apparently embracing the animal for its scrappiness. By the 1800s, coon was also being used as an extremely offensive slur for Black people, apparently due to racist comparisons to the appearance or behavior of raccoons. Coon was popularized by a Blackface minstrel song, “Zip Coon,” published around 1830 and notoriously performed by George Dixon. The song gave rise to Zip Coon as a Blackface character, stereotyping and vilifying the speech, appearance, and behavior of Black people. Both the song “Zip Coon” and its resulting character gave rise to coon songs, a racist genre of music and parody of Black culture popular between around 1880–1920, often accompanied by Blackface in performance and advertising. Leading up to the Civil War, through the Jim Crow era and into the 20th century, coon has remained an extremely offensive racial slur against Black people. In its history, coon has also been used to disparage Native American and Aboriginal peoples. Much less heinous is the Maine Coon or Maine Coon cat, a breed of cat known for its long hair, large size, and striking coloring, which might be said to resemble the markings on a raccoon. Folk tales like to claim the cat is actually part raccoon, but the cats were probably bred from long-haired cats carried over to the American continent on ships from Europe.