Re: Ask The Staff 'Anything'
KmAI;162499 said:
Actually Drak.. A black person calling a white person a cracker is a racial slur, and it is referring to a point of history that's misattributed to every single person of pale skin. Cracker is alluding to "whip cracker" and is racist as hell and derogatory. nobody in my family has owned slaves, or even been in a country that had slavery, so for me to be shouldered with the guilt associated with a skin color is just plain retarded.
As for the word "******" The fact that they use the word to refer to eachother is appropriately hillarious. It means ignorant in its original context, and they're just that - Ignorant of the context of the word and using it in some shallow instance of 'brotherhood'.
you probably shsould be insulted when called a cracker, but there is no social implication when its said. Its like insulting someone for being rich. Its saying "you historically were on the upper end of things. **** you"
I'll reply to you, though I'm commenting on the query in general:
I'm a white boy, lived in a predominantly black are my whole life. Aside from Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle, I have NEVER heard ANYONE use the term cracker; though there was the occasional "white boy can't jump" crack when I was really little. Oh, and I use it occasionally too, when I'm being a smartass.
I HAVE, on the other hand, heard the term "******" in the mouth of at least one racist jackass; and said by lots of my classmates in the form nigga. Hell, I've even been CALLED a nigga.
I'll put it this way-- it makes more sense if you view "******" and "nigga" as two separate terms, with different meanings. Nigga is the slightly controversial hijacking of a racist term and taking in as your own, trying to remove the old meaning. ****** IS a racist term.
I do have one query--
kmAI said:
It means ignorant in its original context
Huh? Every derivation I have ever heard traces it to "negro," which is just Spanish and Portuguese for the color black. I've never seen "ignorant" anywhere, not even Wikipedia.
EDIT: Also, your etymology for "cracker" seems a bit spurious. It sounded wrong to me, and although Wikipedia lists your theory and a similar one as possible derivations, the others sound more likely.
Cracker (pejorative) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And also, from my understanding of the term-- even though I've mostly seen it in books-- there IS a social implication to the term of "poor white trash" as opposed to anything else.
