When the race-baiters started on this thing, they probably looked at the last name “Zimmerman” and decided that its owner was a non-Hispanic white, probably of German or Jewish descent.
Like many other people in Florida, Zimmerman in fact is from a family that has both Hispanic and non-Hispanic members. Calling him a “cracker,” however, is going a little far...but that’s what they want to see in this.
Finally, blacks and Hispanics have little in common. Outside of certain inner city gang areas, Hispanics are just like any immigrant group, learning the language, acclimatizing and getting ahead, and they also tend to value family and church. Lower class black culture, on the other hand, creates people who aren’t going anywhere, and there’s a lot of hostility towards Hispanics on the part of blacks, who feel that they “deserve” to be given what Hispanics are actually working for.
So I think the race baiting contingent really doesn’t care what Zimmerman’s background is, just simply that he’s not black. Because if he had been black and shot this kid, it would simply have been just another day in the neighborhood and they wouldn’t have cared.
This is all political theater. Zimmerman is of mixed heritage and looks like Hugo Chavez’s kid brother. His German or Jewish ancestry is not clearly evident in his appearance, except perhaps in a lighter skin tone than the Hispanic average. But for the purpose of this farce, this mixed heritage man has become an evil redneck white cracker, as if he were some Scots-Irish hillbilly from an Appalachian holler.