Was "Coon" cheese "racist"?

A group of boys from an "elitist" and "fee paying" school has just been hauled over hot media coals for dressing up as "Coon  cheese" and spending a day in social activities outside school.  

If you don't know about the "Coon cheese" saga then I will briefly enlighten you. "Coon" is an anglicised version of a Gaelic surname from the Ayrshire region (as it then was) in Scotland. It is also related to the Irish surname "Cooney".  It has nothing at all to do with the derogatory term  used by some ill-educated people in another part of the world. 

A Mr Edward William Coon put his name to a cheese which was manufactured in a particular way. It was known for 85 years by the name of "Coon" cheese. 

My family must have eaten many kilos of it as it was one of the few varieties of cheese readily available in rural areas.  We never gave the name a thought. We certainly did not think of it as having any sort of "racist" connotations.

But a certain Mr Hagan decided it did have racist connotations and that the name had to be changed. He spent years attempting to get the name changed. Even when the origin of the name was explained to him he insisted it had to be changed. It was not until the Black Lives Matter movement came to the front of the news that he was successful. The company gave in and renamed the cheese "Cheer" cheese at considerable expense. When that happened sales also dropped. While some agreed with the name change many didn't. "Coon" does not have the same meaning here - although it may come to that now there has been so much publicity.

The boys who dressed up as cheese were on a "muck up" day. While I personally consider such days rather foolish it is the sort of thing teens like to do. They were simply dressing up as "cheese" because the t-shirts were available. It gave them a distinctive appearance. They were not going out to break the law or do any harm. 

These boys actually attend a very low fee and anything but elitist school in the south-eastern part of the state. Some of the students pay no fees at all. Many other schools in the region have social issues. As such it is a popular school for students with a more academic bent. Such facts of course did not stop the media labelling the school "elitist" and "fee paying". The students were labelled "racist" and the innocuous picture they posted of their antics had to be pulled down.

I may be wrong of course but I very much doubt the boys even gave a thought to "racism" when they dressed up. In all likelihood they were simply out to have a good time. They almost certainly intended no harm.

Instead this would seem to be yet another example of someone else choosing to see a racist slur where none is intended. It has been seen as yet another opportunity to suggest that racism exists where there is none. It worries me.

Real racism is something I find hard to handle. I hate seeing some of my friends hurt in the way that has happened from time to time. Racism is absolutely and utterly unacceptable and it has to be called out. There are people who attempt to find racism in the merest slight. As my indigenous friend M... once put it, "They think they can be damn rude to everyone but everyone has to be ultra-polite to them." 

That attitude is not going to stop racism. It will just increase it. They should simply have ignored those cheesy t-shirts. The boys probably would not have worn them again.