In my view, the story, the truth, is that Mr. Martin’s use of the word “cracker” was pejorative and racist, especially when one appreciates its use in the context of the preceding words used by Martin to describe Mr. Zimmerman: “crazy ass.”
When I was a kid, I used to go to baseball games here in Atlanta. We had a minor league team called the “Atlanta Crackers.”
So, the word “cracker” is not necessarily racist; it depends on context and on who said it.
If a Black person says it, it’s racist; if I say it to a White person it isn’t.
Isn’t that the logic PC devotees apply to the “N” word?
Whaddup ma’cracka?
Cracker is not racist.
Some (esp. blacks) think it applies to the whiteness of saltine crackers and intend it as a racist insult.
But “cracker” really applies to the cracking of cattle drovers’ whips. Those were the original “crackers.”