Posted on 10/25/2006 5:45:52 PM PDT by bouchard3333
I guess I finally get to ask, what is the word "cracker" supposed to mean? Am I supposed to be insulted, outraged?
No! Not Crackers!
LOL
Video: Harold Ford Sr. calls pro-life activists “crackers“; Update: “trackers” was the word
The Ford family, what a class act!
cracker, you been dissed!
a) it is Harold Ford SENIOR, not the Junior running for office;
b) the man clearly says "trackers", not "crackers". Even the web site that hosts this video admits to it.
Where's the NAAWP?
yes
I thought Mr. Ford was himself a white man with one or two distant African ancestors.
Listen to it again. He does say "trackers", not "crackers".
I'm gonna kick you in your cracka ass, you cracka ass cracka. --Chris Rock
"We have a cracker here...", that's OK. The media will excuse it: because...._______ (fill in the blank).
"I guess I finally get to ask, what is the word "cracker" supposed to mean? Am I supposed to be insulted, outraged?"
Down here in Central Florida they say a "Cracker" is one who drives cattle using a bull whip which cracks when snapped.
Naw, gotta' be "crackers". Who but some kind of yahoo macaca would think that's "trackers".
what's a tracker?
The term "cracker" was and is used most frequently in the southern U.S., especially in Georgia and Florida. Since the 1870s a nickname for Georgia is "The Cracker State", which is displayed proudly with no hint of insult or irony.
Historically the word suggested poor, white rural Americans with little formal education. Historians point out the term originally referred to the strong Scots-Irish of the backcountry (as opposed to the English of the seacoast). Thus a sociologist reported in 1926, "As the plantations expanded these freed men (formerly bond servants) were pushed further and further back upon the more and more sterile soil. They became 'pinelanders,' 'corn-crackers,' or 'crackers.'" [Kephard Highlanders] Frederick Law Olmsted, a prominent landscape architect from the northern United States, visited the South as a journalist in the 1850s and noted that some crackers "owned a good many negroes, and were by no means so poor as their appearance indicated." [McWhiney xvi] Other origins of the term "cracker" are linked to early Florida cattle herders that traditionally used whips to herd wild Spanish cattle. The crack of the herders' whips could be heard for great distances and were used to round cattle in pins and to keep the cows on a given track. The "cracker" would be similar to the accepted term of cowboy in the Western United States. (Smith. A Land Remembered)
Usage of the term "cracker" generally differs from "hick" and "hillbilly" because crackers reject or resist assimilation into the dominant culture, while hicks and hillbillies theoretically are isolated from the dominant culture. In this way, the cracker is similar to the redneck. In the African American community, "cracker" is a disparaging term for whites. (The OED cites the 1830s origin of white trash as a word used by slaves on rich plantations to ridicule poor whites.)
Since 1900 "cracker" has become a proud or jocular self-description. With the huge influx of new residents from the North, "cracker" is now used informally by some white residents of Florida and Georgia ("Florida cracker" or "Georgia cracker") to indicate that their family has lived there for many generations.
However, the term "white cracker" is not always used self-referentially and remains a disparaging term to many in the region.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_cracker
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