[QUOTE][IMG]http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/07/01/istock_000017867625medium_custom-56b5b67d996ebe11121ed7a29f8c46e98cdb317f-s51.jpg[/IMG]
[I]Fun with homonyms![/I][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE][I]As you might have gathered from our blog's title, the Code Switch team is kind of obsessed with the ways we speak to each other. Every Monday in "Word Watch," we'll dig into language that tells us something about the way race is lived in America today. (Interested in contributing? [URL="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1sv8Q6NPWWolBKClfASONBDJtErBb4YhMrkXcq23IM80/viewform"]Holler at this form[/URL].)[/I][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Last week, Rachel Jeantel took the stand in the murder trial of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin after an altercation. Jeantel was on the phone with Martin moments before the fateful encounter.
Jeantel said that Martin told her that a "creepy-ass cracker" was following him. She told Don West, George Zimmerman's attorney, that she didn't think the phrase was racist; West argued that it was.
Hold up a second. Cracker? In 2013? It struck my ears as dated, like ofay or honky, the kind of slur an old head like Richard Pryor might have uttered. Jeantel and Martin, of course, were millennials. Could cracker be a regional thing?
I asked Jelani Cobb, a historian at the University of Connecticut and a contributor to The New Yorker, if he might know. (Full disclosure: Cobb is a friend.) He'd written about the etymology of some anti-white slurs: peckerwood, Miss Anne and Mister Charlie, and buckra, a term that was once widely used throughout the black diaspora, in the Americas, the Caribbean and in West Africa.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/07/01/197644761/word-watch-on-crackers[/url]
And whether or not it was racist affects the trial in what way? I just don't see what the attorney was trying to prove by stating that.
doesn't matter if it has some special meaning or not, if it's used in a derogatory manner towards a certain group then it's a racial slur
[quote]"Cracker," the old standby of Anglo insults was first noted in the mid 18th century, making it older than the United States itself. It was used to refer to poor whites[/quote]
Nope, not derogatory at all
Slow news day. I thought this was already incredibly well known.
Normally I would err on the side of equality and non-discrimination when it comes to sexist/racist/etcist issues like this
But if a person of another culture calls me 'cracker' I'm not going t take offense. 'Cracker' and 'Nigga' are, I think, very nearly at the point where (if used within the right context, for 'nigga' especially) they can be used without being perceived as racial slurs
Can't be racist to white people, case closed.
Some people say its literally referring to crackers, others think it means the slave master cracking his whip, doesn't surprise me the Anglos Saxons made a derogatory term to insult themselves.
If nigger is or isn't racist then the same should go for cracker.
[QUOTE=Pepsi-cola;41273081]If nigger is or isn't racist then the same should go for cracker.[/QUOTE]
its only racist when white people say it
Who cares if anyone said the word or not in this case. Makes no difference between the altercation between the man and the child, and who is to blame.
If a poor black child says that he is being followed by a "creepy-ass cracker", he must have been worried or tentative. Does not matter if he used a bad word, his worry was still real, and should not be dismissed.
While Zimmerman could easily be innocent, the defense and the media's handling of the case is making him seem MORE guilty.
At one point, the Defense shut down a black woman's testimony because she was speaking AAVE instead of perfect English. Who cares how she is speaking when she is testifying?
I think it's all about context.
Nonracist:
"Sup nigga?"
"...that one nigga with the red hoody has it"
"whats good cracka?"
Racist:
"Fucking crackers man"
"Get yo banana peelin hands off me nigger"
"I hates crackas yo"
I think cracka and nigga can be used in a nonracist way as in endearment and/or a non hateful noun.
I grew up in PG County near DC, so i dunno, "nigga" was heard in nearly every convo.
peckerwood is a good one
[QUOTE=Iago;41273165]I think it's all about context.
Nonracist:
"Sup nigga?"
"...that one nigga with the red hoody has it"
"whats good cracka?"
Racist:
"Fucking crackers man"
"Get yo banana peelin hands off me nigger"
"I hates crackas yo"
I think cracka and nigga can be used in a nonracist way as in endearment and/or a non hateful noun.
I grew up in PG County near DC, so i dunno, "nigga" was heard in nearly every convo.[/QUOTE]
Be honest, if you were black and a white guy called you a "creepy-ass nigger" in a court case would it be seen as offensive? I think the vast vast majority of us can agree that it's definitely unacceptable in court of law, and the phrase "creepy-ass cracker" is no different at all, and should be regarded the same, case closed.
How offensive the language was does not matter in the context of the case. The child said it because he was worried about a grown fucking man following him in the middle of the night, who knows, I may have gotten scared enough to say a bad word too.
[QUOTE=person11;41273147]Who cares if anyone said the word or not in this case. Makes no difference between the altercation between the man and the child, and who is to blame.
If a poor black child says that he is being followed by a "creepy-ass cracker", he must have been worried or tentative. Does not matter if he used a bad word, his worry was still real, and should not be dismissed.
While Zimmerman could easily be innocent, the defense and the media's handling of the case is making him seem MORE guilty.
At one point, the Defense shut down a black woman's testimony because she was speaking AAVE instead of perfect English. Who cares how she is speaking when she is testifying?[/QUOTE]
Wouldn't a witness referring to a defendant with a racial slur imply a bias toward the defendant?
i am eating honey maid crackers right now, lol.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;41273791]Wouldn't a witness referring to a defendant with a racial slur imply a bias toward the defendant?[/QUOTE]
I was not aware of her calling Zimmerman a cracker. If that happened, that'd would not be good. I meant the use of slurs during the events of the supposed crime, ie Martin calling Zimmerman a cracker.
As far as I knew, the woman was only harassed by the defense for not using "appropriate" English.
[QUOTE=person11;41274437]I was not aware of her calling Zimmerman a cracker. If that happened, that'd would not be good. I meant the use of slurs during the events of the supposed crime, ie Martin calling Zimmerman a cracker.
As far as I knew, the woman was only harassed by the defense for not using "appropriate" English.[/QUOTE]
I thought it was also because she was lying
Pretty much nobody who said that told me what she lied about and what evidence she had. It felt more like they didn't like how she sounded.
[editline]1st July 2013[/editline]
the LA times said that because she was "difficult to understand" she was "uncooperative", wich does not make too much sense
[QUOTE=person11;41274696]Pretty much nobody who said that told me what she lied about and what evidence she had. It felt more like they didn't like how she sounded.
[editline]1st July 2013[/editline]
the LA times said that because she was "difficult to understand" she was "uncooperative", wich does not make too much sense[/QUOTE]
I've been reading she's been lying about a couple things, such as hospitalization.
[QUOTE=areolop;41273105]its only racist when white people say it[/QUOTE]
if the history of cracker pans out then it was white people saying it originally
to themselves
we're literally lawn sprinklers of racism
everyone gets soaked
I thought the meaning of cracker came from blacks referring to slave masters who had whips. They'd crack their whips or use them at times, hence cracker.
Edit:
[QUOTE=Vasili;41273061]Some people say its literally referring to crackers, others think it means the slave master cracking his whip, doesn't surprise me the Anglos Saxons made a derogatory term to insult themselves.[/QUOTE]
Fuck. I'm half way right and late.
[QUOTE=purvisdavid1;41275052]I thought the meaning of cracker came from blacks referring to slave masters who had whips. They'd crack their whips or use them at times, hence cracker.
[/QUOTE]
that's likely the reason it stuck around
[QUOTE=Zeke129;41275685]that's likely the reason it stuck around[/QUOTE]
I was so ignorant of where the word came from that when a Mexican kid in highschool a few years back explained it to me I felt like the most gigantic fucking idiot.
When someone calls me a cracker it really gets to me because it's a word that has been used to oppress my people for hundreds of years. It really irks me and looms over me all day
When someone calls me a cracker it fills me with pride.
[sp] then I tell them why their database/code was crackable and they usually thank me. [/sp]
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_cracker]Maybe she was just being technical, since it's Florida?[/url] :v:
[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;41272335]Slow news day. I thought this was already incredibly well known.[/QUOTE]
Everyone [I]'knew'[/I] it only referred to crackers being the white slavers
louis CK has a video that mentions the word cracker at the end of it.
[video=youtube;TG4f9zR5yzY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY[/video]
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