What is a maroon?
Bugs Bunny often quips "what a maroon", taken to be his idiosyncratic way of saying "moron". He is sometimes quoted on DU.
The word, however, refers to "a fugitive black slave of the West Indies and Guiana in the 17th and 18th centuries; also a descendant of such a slave."; “runaway black slave,” “wild runaway slave,” “the beast who cannot be tamed,” or “living on mountaintops.”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/maroon-community
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/maroon#:~:text=1%20%3A%20a%20person%20who%20is,Sentences%20Learn%20More%20about%20maroon
Like a lot of cartoons of a certain age, the humor of bugs is sometimes crude and racist, even if a bit obscure.
= new reply since forum marked as read
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It's a reference to this:
It was even featured in This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow.
Often quoted on DU. Innocently, of course.
... I'll leave out the "just". 
I think some research into the word's usage over time is feasible, but given the other meanings of "marron" it wouldn't be straightforward.
The character Bugs Bunny is prone to malapropisms. ‘Maroon’ is merely a mispronunciation of ‘moron.’ Is that the simplest explanation, or did writers employ an archaic word to have Bugs Bunny insult, say, Elmer Fudd by calling him - nonsensically, mind you - a runaway slave?
Occam’s Razor. It slices. It dices. It cuts codswollop to shreds.
Nor do I see offence taken ( you can of course, point out these specific responses of indignation, yes?).
What I do see is the merit of your simple hypothesis, itself predicated only a "hunch" and a dated homonym, being called into question.
Certainly no one is arguing older animated shorts didn't contain racism; yet the responsibility lies on you to support, with evidence, your own premise of racism of this particular. That's basic logic 101 and really... "it shouldn't be surprising or contentious." 
I'm simply wondering if your entire hypothesis is predicated on a hunch, or if you in fact, have evidence.
If not, it's really more a wild guess advertising our own biases more than it is anything else... which is of course, "all too human" as well.
... looking the word "maroon" up int the dictionary and discovering that it is a racial insult used to denigrate others, which fits the context in which it is used very well.
The reason that I took time to look it up is that Bugs is well known for using humorous malapropisms. The true meaning of the work being misappropriated is often key to the humor and gives it an extra dimension. So I looked it up. That it turned out to be a racist insult didn't surprise me too much because the early Bugs Bunny cartoons, in fact all early cartoons, are infamous for their raw, crude, racial insensitivity.
I'm not the only one to make these observations - I found this on Daily Kos:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/14/1818623/-The-Real-Maroons-and-then-there-was-Bugs-Bunny-BLM
Humor based on malapropisms is rooted in racist minstrel shows:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stump_speech_(minstrelsy)
That carried over into vaudeville and then into cartoons. And eventually ended up, occasionally and innocently, on DU. I thought others would want to be aware.
Question: What biases do you believe might motivate my concern?
... of Mel Blanc
A great talent!
.. Yes. 
On a more serious note, I did get the chance to meet Chuck Jones, as part of a Tex Avery retrospective. Those guys knew what they were doing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Jones
They even had a thing for opera.
What's Opera, Doc?
It has been widely praised by many in the animation industry as the greatest animated cartoon that Warner Bros. ever released, and has been ranked as such in the top 50 animated cartoons of all time. In 1992, the Library of Congress deemed it "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant", and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, the first cartoon to receive such honors.
That is, using a word in the correct context but intentionally misspelled and/or mispronounced?
Maybe that's just bad spelling and poor grammar......
KY
I've always believed that "jerry rigged" was an alternate pronunciation of "jury-rigged", the nautical term describing improvised masts, spars, or rigging.
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/jury-rigged
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/jury%20mast
It might be that your skinhead co-worker knew something I don't, or it might be that he was just an oversensitive snowflake, as Neo-Nazis tend to be.
1. Maroon as used by Bugs is a simple comic mispronunciation, one of many. Here is an example where he mispronounces two things. It is not some hidden racial slur.
2. Maroon, in terms of escaped slaves who then lived free outside of the colonial society is not at all obscure if you are familiar with West Indian culture (I am half Bajan, my mum is from Barbados), especially Jamaican. Nanny of the Maroons is one of the Jamaican national heroes and is on one of their paper monetary bills. There is also a village called Maroon Town in Jamaica. There were also Maroon communities throughout the southern US, many well in the 19th century.
NANNY OF THE MAROONS - A JAMAICAN NATIONAL HERO
https://svarthistoria.com/blog/nanny-of-the-maroons-en-jamaicansk-nationalhjlte
Go with it!
More as an example of Bugs Bunny using the word Maroon in a cartoon.
