S1- Unit 4 Moodle: Cultural Creations-Confronting Stereotypes

The trope of the Urban Coon was used by white people as a reaction to free black people beginning to move North and join the workforce. It was employed as white people were displeased about freed black people moving North even though they saw themselves as superior to the South as they made slavery illegal earlier. It worked to make Black people seem less desirable as workers as it centered the stereotype that all Black people loved to do was dance, gamble, and indulge in the simple pleasures of life. It mocked the very idea that Black people would fathom working outside of slavery and asserted the idea that it was the only place for them.

This trope is perpetuated in modern culture via the policing of people’s language in “professional’ settings. The barrier between professional and unprofessional is oftentimes almost synonymous with the barrier between white and black. Each group has its own developed vernacular, and white people’s language has been adapted to the professional workplace simply since the way they spoke was seen as more eloquent than their black counterparts due to a developing split in language in the era of slavery and Jim Crow. So words and phrases that have begun to enter our everyday usage such as “period” actually stem from AAVE and are being taken and stripped from their cultural context. They are only seen as appropriate to use by the general public when they have been connected to a new culture instead, most often TikTok, completely separating them from blackness. This same methodology of separation into eventual appropriation is also prevalent with respect to appearance. Many things that are now in fashion or considered “TikTok” style originated from black creators first. However, due to influencers, especially those in fashion, being overwhelmingly white, these developments online are always one “generation” behind what is happening in the real world which shines a light on how consistent this problem is.

Works Cited

“Ethnic Notions.” California Newsreel, 1986.