Donda’s Child

Written by: Isaac Traore II Kingdom II

Delivered: Monday, May 14, 2018
Personal opinion Piece

For years I’ve enjoyed Kanye West’s music and learn to navigate much of my teenage
hood and young adulthood. I am a big fan of Mr. west and his artistry and what he seems to
stand up for.

Kanye west brought us albums like college dropout and 808s and heartbreak. Similarly
he also dropped singles like Jesus walk and father stretch my hands. Songs with enough
resonance and umph that they wwere played in church and in strip clubs across fit entire
country and the around the plane. Kanye in a sense brought the lord to the club and the sinner
to the lord involuntarily. We praised him.
I read a recent article with Cyhi the prince being interview where he mentions that he and
Kanye are on a quest to see who can rap the gospel the best. And this moved me because no
artist in the entire creation has ever aspired to such level. This to me proved a lot coming from
another artist. Not ye himself.

The idea that a genius cannot have a opinion. The idea that freedom of speech warrant
freedom to bully is completely baffling. Donda’s child is now a coon. Coonye as they call him
due to his ability to love all and his admiration of the US president Donald J Trump. American
blacks and others around the world have united on lynching one of their own for a cup of
instant internet satisfaction and notoriety.
Let’s have a look at the word coon. The online etymology dictionary describes it as
“popular abbreviation of raccoon, 1742, American English. It was the nickname of Whig Party
members in U.S. c. 1848-60, as the raccoon was the party's symbol, and it also had associations
with frontiersmen (who stereotypically wore raccoon-skin caps), which probably ultimately was
the source of the Whig Party sense (the party's 1840 campaign was built on a false image of
wealthy William Henry Harrison as a rustic frontiersman).
By 1837, said to be from barracoon (by 1837), from Portuguese barraca "slave depot, pen or
rough enclosure for black slaves in transit in West Africa, Brazil, Cuba." If so, no doubt this was
boosted by the enormously popular blackface minstrel act Zip Coon (George Washington Dixon)
which debuted in New York City in 1834. But it is perhaps older (one of the lead characters in
the 1767 colonial comic opera "The Disappointment" is a black man named Raccoon).”
(reference1)
Apparently in Black America and United Kingdom, context and actual definitions of
terms are not mandatory when emotions are involved. Nowhere does the definition of this
term apply to Kanye west. Yet here we are. He is the coon of the hour.
These days it seems that the world has been divided in many zones and in America especially
there’s a zone called “black” so and so. Black twitter, black spaces, basically the ethnical
segregation of spaces based on race. In this instance lets have a look at black spaces and their
definition of the term coon. As per the urban dictionary online, this is what we get for coon:
“A black person who is ignorant to white discrimination and unknowingly suffers with
self-hatred.

A black man who only dates white women or only find white women attractive.
"Samuel L Jackson played a coon in the movie Django.".” (reference 2)

Now let’s have a look at prominent black figures who engaged in interracial marriage.
Frederick Douglas whom second wife was a young white feminist. Mildred Loving, a black
woman, and her white partner, Richard Loving, helped topple anti-miscegenation in Virginia
and across the nation, after the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against race-based
restriction in state marriage laws. Loving v. Virginia would later be cited as precedent in the
high court's historic ruling in favor of same-sex marriage. (reference3).
Frederick Douglas and Mildred seem to both fit this third definition of coon. Are we then to
brush their accomplishments aside and disregard all that they have done for the Africans in
America and abroad? How is the most influenceable African American of the nineteenth
century now reduced to a simple coon. This is precisely what I cannot understand.

“Upon this hint I spake;

She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd,
And I lov'd her, that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have us'd:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.”
-William shakespear (Othello (c. 1603) (ref4)

Are matters of the heart now a crime. We must ask ourselves if it is a crime to love the person whom
the heart desires? If it is, then Frederick, Mildred and Kanye are coons. If not, we can agree that this
by definition does not make one a coon. The other popular definition of coon is A black person who
is ignorant to white discrimination and unknowingly suffers with self-hatred. This is very
difficult to judge from a distance especially if you are a simple fan. A parent being tough on her
child isn’t out of self-hatred but rather self-respect and love. I will not compare this to Kanye’s
situation however I will look at his track record and base my opinions on them. His track record
proves him to be a saviour (in the art sense) for the black American and a huge positive
influence on the entire world. He came from a middle class black family residing in Chicago and
showed us the impossible. He stood up against great powers time and time again to show his
dedication and love for the so called black community only to then be labelled a coon and have
his ”black card” revoked for having an unpopular opinion.

This piece is simply to start an internal conversation about the power we give to the social
structures we are forced into. Whether it be black guy, skinny girl, brown girl or poor person. These, I
believe, are all constructs that we are thrusted in for no other purpose than to demoralize us and
make us mentally enslaved to the directives of the “mob” as Kanye put it.
It is time for unpopular opinions. Tt is time to express ourselves fully without stepping on the
rights of others. It is time to all become artists.
Sources:
(ref 1) https://www.etymonline.com/word/coon
(ref 2) https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=coon
https://mic.com/articles/177574/interracial-marriage-is-more-common-than-ever-new-study-
shows#.0hHFwZnrW

(ref 4) William shakespear (Othello (c. 1603)