Slur puts Saban in midst of uproar

Profanity and an off-color comment about Cajuns by Nick Saban that he thought would remain private have become public, causing the former Dolphins coach to issue an apology Wednesday through the University of Alabama. During a 40-minute meeting with three South Florida newspaper reporters, including one from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, on Jan. 4 in Tuscaloosa, Ala., after being named the Crimson Tide's head coach, Saban relayed an anecdote about the reaction to his hiring at Louisiana State University, a Southeastern Conference rival where he coached from 2000 to 2004. Saban told the reporters that "you guys won't be able to print this" before conveying what he said was a telephone call he had received from an unidentified member of LSU's board of trustees. "He was walking down the street yesterday before the Sugar Bowl," Saban said. "He calls me. There was a guy working in the ditch, one of those coon-ass guys that talk funny. I can't talk like them, but he can. Most people in Louisiana can." Continuing his story, Saban then repeated the worker's vulgar comment about him going to Alabama. Saban laughed and then added, "But that's how [LSU fans] are, though. They're passionate, hardcore." Audio of the interview was recently aired on WQAM (560-AM) and subsequently posted on the Internet, which prompted Saban to issue a statement about

Coon ass = redneck

Not precisely:

Although some Cajuns use the word in regard to themselves, other Cajuns view the term as an ethnic slur against the Cajun people, especially when used by non-Cajuns. Socioeconomic factors appear to influence how Cajuns are likely to view the term: working-class Cajuns tend to regard the word "coonass" as a badge of ethnic pride; whereas middle- and upper-class Cajuns are more likely to regard the term as insulting or degrading, even when used by fellow Cajuns in reference to themselves.

I know a couple people that consider themselves coon-ass and it certainly isn't a designation they shy away from. good people, and they do talk funny...and we all have a good time with it.

Anybody whose ancestors were thrown out of Canada has the right kind of family tree in my book.

Our own local patois shares the Cajun roots; there were just too many of then settled in our neck of the woods, and they threw most of the Britishers out.

Sample:

The Bewitched Treasures of Point O'Chene

As told by Pepe Boucher

Non, non, this not be all loup garou of this place. I tell you now about Point O'Chene.

You know where Point O'Chene be down on the Wabash River below Vincennes? All around that place be charmed. If anyone cut wood to build a house it be all right, mais the limbs of the trees he want make make into wood to burn and the limbs he pile to make a bon-fire disappear as they be chop off. No trace of them do we ever see if they not turn to the thick under-brush which grew and grew everywhere around the river bend near Point O'Chene. Of course other things happen at that place. When one look on the ground for the limbs he cut from the tree he see silver snuff boxes, combs with high silver filigree for woman's hair, gold rings with bright gems glitter on them, silverware for the crea, sugar and coffee. They be so beautiful and so bright that everyone want them. There be fine lace like the cobweb of spider; silk that seem woven by the sunbeam. One by one, man go to the place to pick up the treasures lost by a Spaniard long before George Rogers Clark came over the stream.

Oui, oui, many pieces of silver, lace and silk he got, mais they say they must be paid for in some awful manner. They were goods the devil tempts people with. One time a man had silver candle-sticks, paltes, combs and cups, and his wife had much lace, silk and silver back combs. Ma foi! their children be none and when some borrow nice white corn meal from them, when the corn meal be in the other house it be musty and green when he gets home and opens the sack. His wife feed it to the dog and it die. No one borrow meal more than once from man and woman, who get things from Point O'Chene.

HOME

"I was in the LARNG for 6 years - never heard that term."

Well, I did a google search on it, and found that the word "Coonass" had been the topic of a 2001 thread on FR, which included an article from the Times-Picayne which stated, in relevant part:

The Legislature formally condemned the word's use in 1981. Yet the Louisiana Air National Guard's acclaimed 159th Tactical Fighter Group in Belle Chasse called itself the Coonass Militia until 1992.

I don't know how to do a link, but if you google "CoonAss militia" it should pop right up as result No. 1.

Wow, I log in for the first time in a year, and I see this, LOL. Well, I'm from Alabama and I've never met anyone yet from Louisiana that didn't revel in being called a coon ass. They've all tried so diligently to work the phrase into as many sentences as possible when referring to themselves that I long ago decided that there must be something magical about it, like it adds years to their lives or increases their sex drive or something. The utter joy that spreads across their face every time they can refer to themselves as a coon ass is enviable, without doubt. In fact, I wish I were a coon ass, so I too could invent situation after situation in which I could refer to myself as such. So, who was upset about what, again?...

"So, who was upset about what, again?..."

Well, some dude named Colin Cowturd (sp?) from ESPN was upset that Nick Saban used the term coonass while relating a story told to him. So this ESPN guy says "we just call them tornado bait" instead that awful racial slur.

Thankfully this Cowturd fella is available to point out to those of us in the south how we aren't as literate as he.

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