IF THE “COON” FITS
On a Racial Slur and White Ignorance
Published in
3 min readFeb 3, 2019
“Leeann… um… Mark just told me that he was going… coon hunting?” The earnest inquiry in Alex’s eyes betrayed the deliberate pace of his speech. He was a new African-American staff person at our non-profit . He’d moved to Pittsburgh from from Los Angeles and was still adjusting to the “Minnesota nice” ethos of Pittsburgh’s racial tribalism. Despite our city-on-the-rise…
