Ed Do you like your cheese?

lionking said:
Again, if you have read this thread, you will see why this cheese is so named. How about you providing evidence that it was named after a then very obscure and never used racial slur in Australia 100 years ago. Your claim. Prove it.
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It was my claim that 'just so' stories come in multiple flavors. The sources are upthread.
 
Wow, I was beginning to think I didn't post it.

In fairness it was deep in a post (Highlighted]:
The Greater Fool said:
Perhaps if you had coon and myriad other racial slurs thrown at you your whole life, frequently, from unexpected sources, for no good reason, as part of explicit and implicit threats to your well being, you might understand that by the time you start to think about the logic of your response, your heart is already pounding, you are already fearful. You are, in fact, already experiencing a conditioned response to a lifetime of experience. What you dismiss as feelings.


Logically, the cheese name is a slur against minorities.

This is not the first nor last time an offensive thing becomes not offense because, you see, there is a just so story that shows us why. Here and here are just so stories that say otherwise. For such a famous cheesemaker that he deserves to be honored, Edward W. Coon seems to have left little to no mark on the industry.

Yeah, let's believe the just so story of the famous American E W Coon being honored in Australia by Kraft who didn't actually use the cooning process for the cheese bearing his name.



All associations are in our heads. Of course racist slurs have different associations to different people. The people using them have a different association than those receiving them. People that have only an intellectual connection to racial slurs apparently can tell us logically what is and isn't a slur. Which is why to many here, coon cheese is just a cheese, to others it's a problem.

Aunt Jamima and Uncle Ben don't have racist associations for my wife because they have never been used against her as a slur. Thus good rice and breakfast are her only associations. Until I asked her about it she had never thought of it being an issue.

Your logic would lead you to nonsensical ends. If it was called N-Word cheese, she shouldn't be offended upon seeing it, she should apply logic. Once her heart slows and she decides she's in no immediate threat she needs to think it through. After all, she can't be sure it's not named by a co-op of young black rappers who are marketing the cheese to their fans.


To you this is an intellectual exercise.

To minorities, it's about experience.
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lionking said:
Read the thread.

How about you providing evidence that the origin of the name was a deliberate racial slur.
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Since you don't seem to know - it was found on the brand's own website.

ETA: And the idea that a "racist" term wouldn't be used as a brand name a "hundred years ago" - well as someone else pointed out there was a colour known as "****** brown", which was a colour I know my grandmother knew under that name. That wasn't named as such to be racist, but today it seems hard to understand that.

If it is true - that the cheese was waxed in black wax - it might have led the initial cheese being named as such for the colour rather than to be intentionally racist.

Of course all that is totally irrelevant to making a call today about a brand and trademark...
 
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lionking said:
Again, if you have read this thread, you will see why this cheese is so named. How about you providing evidence that it was named after a then very obscure and never used racial slur in Australia 100 years ago. Your claim. Prove it.
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I don't have any evidence and haven't made a claim. That it was named after Edward Coon is the claim. Prove that.

While you are at it, prove that "coon" as a racial slur was obscure in Australia in 1935. That's a claim as well. I don't know, I can prove it was common in the UK if you want to dispute that. Do you?
 
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The Greater Fool said:
Wow, I was beginning to think I didn't post it.

In fairness it was deep in a post (Highlighted]:
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Hagan's claim (from the links posted by TGF) is that the factory owners added the name of one of the factory workers to a patent.

Seriously?

I think the fact that the cheese has the same name as the patent holder's name on the process used to make the cheese is more than a "just so" story.


I must admit, it was interesting to read that it was originally wrapped in black wax. I have to wonder if the switch to red wax and the name change to Red Coon was an early attempt to avoid the obvious connection.

I still think it's one of those cases where people are looking to find racism where none exists. It's a name. It's the name of the guy who holds the patent for the process that makes the cheese. Yes, people associate it with a racist epithet, and that might be a good enough reason to change the name, but it isn't racist. It's no more racist than "Devil in the Dark" is racist because it was written by Gene Coon.*


*Geeky off topic aside:
When I looked up Gene Coon on wikipedia, I found out that Lee Cronin was a pen name for Gene Coon. The odd thing was that I thought Gene Coon's episodes were some of the really good episodes from the original series, and I always thought Lee Cronin's were the worst.
 
Meadmaker said:
Hagan's claim (from the links posted by TGF) is that the factory owners added the name of one of the factory workers to a patent.

Seriously?

I think the fact that the cheese has the same name as the patent holder's name on the process used to make the cheese is more than a "just so" story.
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Aside from there being no actual ties between the patent holder and this manufacturer being on the other side of the world and the patent ending at national borders and the like.

It seems pretty strange to name it after some random cheese guy on the other side of the world.
 
arthwollipot said:
Words hold power. Words are wielded as weapons, to marginalise and disenfranchise, and can cause real harm.
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I agree... I also see a fair bit of selectivity from many people (not you) on this topic. There are a lot of people who are perfectly sanguine about using words to marginalize, disenfranchise, and harm people if they believe those people are bad people. You know, like "republicans" or "deplorables".
 
Emily's Cat said:
I agree... I also see a fair bit of selectivity from many people (not you) on this topic. There are a lot of people who are perfectly sanguine about using words to marginalize, disenfranchise, and harm people if they believe those people are bad people. You know, like "republicans" or "deplorables".
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Or the ultimate "white supremacists". Many of whom are good folks.
 
lionking said:
Again, if you have read this thread, you will see why this cheese is so named. How about you providing evidence that it was named after a then very obscure and never used racial slur in Australia 100 years ago. Your claim. Prove it.
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Hmmmm, first source linked in the Wiki page on the subject, took 0.46 seconds to find.
In this book, An Encyclopaedia of Swearing; A Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World, the author claims the radical slur was in use at least in 1905.

In Australian English it has been used disparagingly to refer to an Aborigine, at least from about 1899: “Australia is a elova fine place for coons, and the blacker and uglier they are the better they seem to be treated” (1905, from Truth, Sydney, 24).​
Truth is a newspaper of the time, I guess if someone was determined, they could search their archives to dispute the quote.

I don’t understand the continued denial that the word wasn’t/isn’t known as a racial slur in Australia in the face of all the evidence (yes, even anecdotes) in this thread (and frankly IRL).
 
Meadmaker said:
Hagan's claim (from the links posted by TGF) is that the factory owners added the name of one of the factory workers to a patent.

Seriously?

I think the fact that the cheese has the same name as the patent holder's name on the process used to make the cheese is more than a "just so" story.


I must admit, it was interesting to read that it was originally wrapped in black wax. I have to wonder if the switch to red wax and the name change to Red Coon was an early attempt to avoid the obvious connection.

I still think it's one of those cases where people are looking to find racism where none exists. It's a name. It's the name of the guy who holds the patent for the process that makes the cheese. Yes, people associate it with a racist epithet, and that might be a good enough reason to change the name, but it isn't racist. It's no more racist than "Devil in the Dark" is racist because it was written by Gene Coon.*


*Geeky off topic aside:
When I looked up Gene Coon on wikipedia, I found out that Lee Cronin was a pen name for Gene Coon. The odd thing was that I thought Gene Coon's episodes were some of the really good episodes from the original series, and I always thought Lee Cronin's were the worst.
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Exactly.
 
PursuedByABear said:
Well do you think it's impossible that it was called "coon cheese" because it has a black covering, if what he says was right? That would have been perfectly unremarkable in a world where dyed wool was available in "****** brown". I have no idea whether this is true, but I haven't seen any indication that Edward Coon was anything but a man making cheese in New York round about the time the Australian company started trading. Does the cheese use the "Cooning process", and did it ever? If the answer to that is "yes" it strengthens the Edward Coon origin story, if the answer is "no" it seriously weakens it.

If it is named after Edward Coon then it would seem odd that a maker of cheese would have wanted an Australian rival to use his name. As far as I can tell he had nothing to do with the company at all. It might be true that they chose the name to honour this man, or stole it to boost their sales (which would assume this New York cheesemaker was widely known in Australia), but it doesn't really ring very true, does it. The black covering story is just as plausible on the face of it, although of course this doesn't mean that either, both or neither are true.
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Darat said:
I suspect that the history of the name of this cheese brand has been - shall we say - a tad whitewashed.
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This has been what the company has been claiming is the origin of the name from the beginning. As can be seen on the website. The recent development is that the company has now acknowledged that yes, despite the actual origin of the name, it can be seen as derogatory by some, and therefore the name will be changed.

I have no reason to believe that what the company says about the origin of the name isn't true. What I'm suggesting is that the origin of the name is irrelevant.
 
arthwollipot said:
This has been what the company has been claiming is the origin of the name from the beginning. As can be seen on the website. The recent development is that the company has now acknowledged that yes, despite the actual origin of the name, it can be seen as derogatory by some, and therefore the name will be changed.

I have no reason to believe that what the company says about the origin of the name isn't true. What I'm suggesting is that the origin of the name is irrelevant.
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Yes because it is unthinkable that a non candy would use racist language in its naming in australia.

Examples of said candies.

https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/03/five-racist-and-homophobic-aussie-snacks-that-did-deserve-to-die/

Noting racist about "N****R Boy Licorice" after all.
 
arthwollipot said:
This has been what the company has been claiming is the origin of the name from the beginning. As can be seen on the website. The recent development is that the company has now acknowledged that yes, despite the actual origin of the name, it can be seen as derogatory by some, and therefore the name will be changed.



I have no reason to believe that what the company says about the origin of the name isn't true. What I'm suggesting is that the origin of the name is irrelevant.
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I've already made the point that the history is irrelevant to a decision being made today. But I am very suspicious of a corporation's account of their own history as they tend to want to paint themselves in the best light possible. And now the evidence is clear that at the time of its creation coon was a word to describe native Australians and if it is true that it was initially sold in black wax then I would be confident in saying it was named for the colour rather than the process. And let me say again IF that is true it does not mean it was named with an intent to be racist.
 
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Darat said:
I've already made the point that the history is irrelevant to a decision being made today. But I am very suspicious of a corporation's account of their own history as they tend to want to paint themselves in the best light possible. And now the evidence is clear that at the time of its creation coon was a word to describe native Australians and if it is true that it was initially sold in black wax then I would be confident in saying it was named for the colour rather than the process. And let me say again IF that is true it does not mean it was named with an intent to be racist.
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Without any evidence at all apart from the unsupported conjecture of an activist determined to prove the cheese was a racist taunt from the start. How wonderfully skeptical of you.
 
Darat said:
I've already made the point that the history is irrelevant to a decision being made today. But I am very suspicious of a corporation's account of their own history as they tend to want to paint themselves in the best light possible. And now the evidence is clear that at the time of its creation coon was a word to describe native Australians and if it is true that it was initially sold in black wax then I would be confident in saying it was named for the colour rather than the process. And let me say again IF that is true it does not mean it was named with an intent to be racist.
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I'd be less skeptical if there was more than one person challenging it. The challenge to it is all coming from Hagen (or whatever his name is, i forget how it's spelled). The patents exist, in the name of a guy who is known to hae lived in the US and been involved in the cheese business. Hagen just "challenges" the story. His challenge in and of itself shouldn't be sufficient to decide that it's all made up.
 
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