Flavor of Love 3: 3rd Coming of the Coonery?

This season, Flavor Flav returned with his third installment of Flavor of Love. Since the conception of the show, many African-Americans have adamantly expressed their sentiment that this is the most comprehensible act of Coonery that many in our generation have ever had the displeasure of witnessing. Many believe it’s degrading to Blacks, degrading to women, and an all-out circus in which the image of African-American men and women are clowns. Many believe Flav to be the quintessential Coon minus the Blackface make-up. However, could our discomforts and insecurities about our own culture, skin color, and image be the real underlying factor in our distaste for Flavor of Love?

Even with the most recent surge of woman starting to love their “Chocolate Brothas,” it’s still necessary for that “chocolate” to be laced in European wrappers. So there should be no surprise that there’s a deep embedded racism fueled by insecurity, within the Black community itself. I believe that our own hidden prejudices and uneasiness with ourselves makes us more critical and adamant about separating ourselves from a person like Flavor Flav, and our own stereotypical racism regarding aesthetics allow us to quickly associate him with a title historically used to describe a certain type of slave. I find it so amazing that with so many pure forms of Coonery in society, years before the conception of the Flavor of Love show, it took a dark-skinned man who resembles the propaganda image of a slave to make society decide to take a ethical view and revisit the word Coon. I also find that there’s a huge correlation between the fact that Flav resembles the historical image of a Slave man or Coon, and decades later, seeing a huge influx of people deciding to use the word again. It doesn’t seem that we’re calling Flav a Coon by his actions, but more so by the nature of his looks.

When comparing the Flavor of Love to other shows in content, I find no dissimilarity between that show and shows such as The Bachelor, Brett Michael’s Rock of Love, Tila Tequila and many of Flav’s counterparts in the reality show love sagas. The nature of the shows are not different, nor is the ignorance showcased. Ignorance is universal and racially impartial and is prevalent in almost all of these shows. I don’t think many of us viewed it as an act of Coonery when the White star of The Bachelor received oral sex behind a tree on national television. What’s different is how people view the stars and whether we believe they should rightfully bestow the honor. The hostile response to Flav has nothing to do with Coonery or how he’s representing our people through his actions. It has everything to do with how he’s representing our people through his appearance. People are uncomfortable with his looks, his style of dress and uncomfortable with the idea that he’s in a highly visible position and society may associate an unattractive, darker-skinned man with the rest of the Black community. People are calling him a Coon not because of his actions but just by the mere fact that over the years, they’ve failed to acknowledge and have disregarded so much Coonery and now it’s clear that they don’t know what it is. The resurface of the word has less to do with actions and more to do with personal appearance and visual association.

For those who haven’t gotten it yet, the purpose of this piece isn’t to advocate or defend Flavor Flav or the Flavor of Love show. I’m addressing the use of the word Coon and showing how the sudden usage of the word now illustrates a racist view within our own culture. Negative images of women, outlandish fashion sense, braids, and gold fronts are all the things we could associate with any rapper in today’s industry, yet no one else has been referred to as a Coon. Flav’s persona hasn’t changed since his Public Enemy days when he was doing conscious rap about social injustices, yet back then he was never classified as a Coon. Just over ten years ago, his image and messages were socially conscious, cool, hip, cutting-edge, and celebrated. Now today, that same image is referred to as Coonery. But his persona hasn’t changed and what he’s doing isn’t any more appalling than what is seen everyday on BET. However, because his clothes are outdated and his look doesn’t represent us anymore, what was cool yesterday is outlandish today, and somehow we’ve translated that into being a Coon. That isn’t Coonery — that’s being an unpopular, middle-age man, whose looks are reminiscent of what we’ve been taught a Coon looks like, and people are associating a word with an image without a real in-depth knowledge of what it is. The fact that Flav is classified as a Coon, yet entertainers such as Soldier Boy and the Wayans’ family aren’t, is a clear indication that the classification of Coon must come by way of anything other than the definition of the word.

A Coon was historically defined as a Black man who would entertain audiences by mocking and making fun of the negative stereotypical characteristics of the Black community. Historically, Coons would talk ignorant, dance funny, and do whatever White audiences felt would mock the Black culture and put it in an inferior light. By putting an over-exaggerated comedic twist on our culture and making a mockery of it, this expanded our inferior position and saturated important issues. The biggest vehicle of this propaganda was through the success of Coons in our own community. Initially, these people were negatively viewed in the Black community, until Blacks became introduced to the idea of assimilation. In Black folks’ past and ever-present attempt to live a European lifestyle, things that were previously intolerable seemed to become socially acceptable. As Whites praised them, Coons soon became respected not only in their community but in the Black communities as well. Soon, the Chris Rocks, Wayans’ Brothers, and the Bernie Macs of those days went from being negatively referred to as Coons to becoming icons in the community.

Contrary to the belief that Flavor Flav is the quintessential Coon of our day, the real Coon, I believe, is one of the most celebrated Black men in our society with a successful and highly influenced show — Martin. His show embodied every negative connotation of Black men that ever existed. His stereotypical depictions included the angry black man, portrayals of the ghetto girl from across the hall, Black children who lack respect for adult authority, and the loud, church-going mother — all coming fully-loaded with the complimentary stereotypical mannerisms and attitudes associated with the Black community. To truly understand what Coonery is, watch a season of Martin. And if you are still confused, pop in a season of The Dave Chappelle Show and expand your horizon of Coonery ignorance.

Flavor Flav is criticized for taping the real life ignorance of our people, while Martin and Dave Chappelle are celebrated for clearly mocking and monopolizing from the negative connotations and stereotypes associated with our community and expanding our inferior position. White America loves them, grants them major avenues to showcase this ignorance, and they become Black icons as well. Their work is a perfect description of Coonery, yet Black America has never referred to them as Coons. However, when a Black man fits a physical description of what, historically, we’ve been taught to believe a Coon looks like, simultaneously every African-American has an opinion on how degrading his show is and finally has found a home for the use of the word. However, when Martin rips down every conceivable variation of the Black persona — hair, skin tone, communication skills, social status, and showcases every possible negative stereotypical image known to man — it’s viewed as nothing more than comedy. When Dave Chappelle dresses up like a crackhead and does his crackhead skit it is the same type of Coonery that was done in Blackface during slavery times—just a different shade of make-up.

The point I’m driving home is that maybe what Flav is doing is a form Coonery, but I find a negative connotation that is racially motivated when we ignore Coonery from so many others, and wait until there’s a Black man whose looks are synonymous with the propaganda images of a man in slave times, and begin to describe him specifically, by a name that is associated with slavery. I don’t think Black Americans would be so quick to use the term Coon if the show was hosted by rapper Nelly or 50 Cent. Although I’m sure the same type of ignorance and highly offensive material would be exhibited, I highly doubt we would use the term Coon to describe those individuals. My problem doesn’t lie with individuals using the word, but if we are going to use it, let’s make sure it’s not stemming from a racially suppressed place, we know what it means, and we use it respectively to all the people to whom it applies to.