Musicians, attorney spar over Cajun patois

Say “coon ass” around one Cajun and you may get a slap on the back. The next Cajun may just slap you.

Whether compliment or curse, the word earned musicians and business partners Jamie Bergeron and Rick Lagneaux 24-hour suspensions from Facebook in August. The state Department of Agriculture sent a letter to Bergeron which said, by Jan. 1, he must terminate the use of its “Certified Cajun” marketing logo on his “Registered Coon Ass” seasoning and hot sauce.

Bergeron and Lagneaux will comply, but say all the fuss has brought support from thousands of Facebook friends. The musicians report moving “hundreds of cases” of their RCA seasoning products, which are carried in 60 stores.

Released on his 2010 album, “Your New CD,” “Registered Coonass” is one of Bergeron’s most popular songs. Bergeron views the word as a badge of honor, a slap on the back for south Louisiana’s colorful music, food and language.

“It’s who we are,” said Bergeron. “I say ‘Jamie Bergeron is a coon ass.’ I’m not calling anybody that.

“It’s all in how you use the word. When I do a show, I don’t say ‘Look at all you coon asses.’

“I say, ‘How many coon asses we got out there?’ People go crazy and we start up the song.”

Bergeron and Lagneaux point a finger of blame at attorney Warren Perrin, who served as president of Council on the Development of French in Louisiana for 16 years. Perrin, who remains on CODOFIL’s board, has long championed against use of the word. He praised Bergeron’s Facebook suspension in his email newsletter, “La Parole,” or “The Word.”

Perrin condemns “coon ass,” and its vulgar undertones, as the ultimate slap in the face for people of Acadian descent. He often distributes a five-page letter from CODOFIL that requests businesses and others stop using the term.

The letter points to a Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 170, drafted in 1981, that condemned the sale of any item containing the word. Perrin said the fight is not a vendetta against Bergeron.

“I’ve never met the man,” said Perrin. “I have nothing against him.”

“You can’t take the ‘ass’ out of coon ass. It’s offensive anyway you look at it. If you want to be a shock jock and be a rebel, but don’t drag the culture down with you. That’s CODOFIL’s position. That’s not Warren Perrin’s position.”

Origins elusive

In his book, “The Cajuns: Americanization of a People,” historian Shane K. Bernard said the origins of “coon ass" remain elusive. Bernard writes about CODOFIL’s founding director James Domengeaux, who contended the term was “to humiliate, embarrass and degrade” Cajun people.

Domengeaux claimed the word came from “conasse,” a standard French term loosely translated as a “stupid person” or “dirty whore.” The slur was levied at Cajun GIs serving in France during World War II.

Others claimed the word evolved from the flood of 1927, when half-drowned Cajuns were found with raccoons in the treetops. Some believe it sprang from animosity between Texans and neighboring Cajuns who invaded the state during the oilfield boom.

Other theories suggest a racist tag that Cajuns were lower than “coons,” a racist term for blacks.

Bernard’s research uncovered the earliest of the word to a 1943 photograph of a C-47 transport plane, in the South Pacific, called the “Cajun Coonass.” The photo was taken a year before the first Cajun GIs landed in France on D-Day.

Ironically, during the rise in Cajun pride in the 1970s, “coon ass” enjoyed a rebirth as badge of honor for the working class. The word was emblazoned on T-shirts, license plates, bumper stickers, caps and more.

No end in sight

The “coon ass” fight shows no signs of ending soon. Perrin said CODOFIL will continue to support the Senate resolution that condemns the word.

The word was key in a 1980 court case in which Calvin J. Roach, a Cajun from Acadia Parish, successfully sued his former employer, Dresser Industrial Valve and Instrument Division. Roach had been fired after protesting his bosses’ use of “coonass.”

Federal judge Edwin Hunter Sr. declared Cajuns were a minority protected by the Civil Rights Acts of 1964. Perrin said the case further proves the word is an ethnic slur.

“It shows a total lack of respect for so many people that have fought for so long to bring us up by the bootstraps and restore pride to what we have today, compared to what we had in the ‘50s,” said Perrin. “That’s what I find really offensive.”

Bergeron remains determined to continue its use in his music and products. He contends the Senate resolution is not a law signed by the governor.

“If I was breaking the law, I would have been put in jail a long time ago,” said Bergeron.

He recently unveiled an online cooking and music show in which his RCA seasonings are prominently used and displayed. Bergeron cooks on the show, wearing a “Registered Coon Ass” apron.

The first show had more than 140,000 views.

“It makes me pump harder. When somebody pushes against me, I push back 10 times harder. I always have a fire. But this turns the heat up on my want-to and my umph.

“This creates demand and I have to supply the demand.”