As an audiotape spread on the Internet, Alabama coach Nick Saban acknowledged Wednesday using a phrase considered derogatory to Cajuns but said he doesn't condone such language and merely was repeating something a friend told him.Well, hell. I'm a quarter Cajun. My kids are closer to three-quarters, their mother is full blooded Acadiene. The Cajun people are some of the funniest, modest, forgiving people that ever graced God's Green Earth. We love to laugh, we love to eat and drink and some of the things a person does when they've been drinking is funny. I'll give Coach Saban a pass on this one. Not everyone is so understanding.
Warren Perrin, president of the Council for Development of French in Louisiana, said the term is ``highly offensive.'' ``I routinely state that the use of that term is highly offensive to descendants of Acadians, who are commonly referred to as Cajuns,'' Perrin said.Oh, bullshit! Who put Perrin in charge of Cajun sensibilities? Some of the crap that CODOFIL has proposed over the years has been fairly silly, in and of itself.
This is much ado about nothing. Nick Saban coached at LSU from 2000-2004 and led the Tigers to the 2003 National Championship. I doubt seriously that Coach Saban meant anything derogatory in the simple telling of a joke. We laugh at ourselves, and we laugh at other people. Laughter lubricates life.
One of these days I'll tell y'all about my two favorite Coonass friends, Boudreaux and Thibodeaux, who live in Avoyelles Parish. In the meantime, try to not take yourself too seriously.
Just for the record, I've never run across this term before today. Yes, I'm feeling pretty strange about that little factoid too. It seems that this word is even more common than say "Melungeon" (Appalachia), although the latter is closer to my geographic area.
ReplyDeleteGoogle came to the rescue, and now I'm educated on the topic.
I had a friend in the navy who proudly called himself a coonass. First time I came across the term, I always thought it reflected a culture and attitude most of which I admired. I dont really care for saban but this to me is a non story, think he should laugh it off and move on till his employer worries about it.
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