Cracker, sometimescracka orwhite cracker, is aracial slur directed atwhite people,[1][2][3] used especially with regard topoor rural whites in theSouthern United States.[4] Also referred by theeuphemistic contractionC-word,[5] it is commonly apejorative, though is also used in a neutral context, particularly in reference to a native ofFlorida orGeorgia (seeFlorida cracker andGeorgia cracker).[6]
The exact history and origin of the term is debated.[7] According to one theory, it is anagent noun derived from the verbcrack, meaning "to boast".[8] The use ofcracker to mean "braggart" dates back to the 16th century and can be seen for example inWilliam Shakespeare'sKing John (c. 1595): "What cracker is this same that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?"[1]
The word was later documented describing a group of "Celtic immigrants,Scotch-Irish people who came to America running from political circumstances in theold world."[9][10] This usage is illustrated in a 1766 letter to theEarl of Dartmouth which reads:[11]
I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who often change their places of abode.
The label followed theScotch-Irish American immigrants, who were often seen by officials as "unruly and ill-mannered."[9] The use of the word is further demonstrated in official documents, where the Governor of Florida said,
We don't know what to do with these crackers—we tell them to settle this area and they don't; we tell them not to settle this area and they do.
By the early 1800s, those immigrants "started to refer to themselves that way as a badge of honor"[9] as is the case with other events of linguisticreappropriation.
The compoundcorn-cracker was used of poor white farmers (by 1808), especially from Georgia, but also extended to residents of northern Florida, from the cracked kernels ofcorn which formed astaple food of this class of people. This possibility is given in the1911 edition ofEncyclopædia Britannica,[12] but theOxford English Dictionary says a derivation of the 18th-century simplexcracker from the 19th-century compoundcorn-cracker is doubtful.[13][14]
It has been suggested that white slave foremen in the antebellum South were called "crackers" owing to their practice of "cracking the whip" to drive and punish slaves.[15][16][17] Whips were also cracked over pack animals,[18][19] so "cracker" may have referred to whip cracking more generally. According toAn American Glossary (1912):[20]
The whips used by some of these people are called 'crackers', from their having a piece of buckskin at the end. Hence the people who cracked the whips came to be thus named.
Another possibility, which may be a modernfolk etymology, supposes that the term derives from "soda cracker", a type of light wheat biscuit that in the Southern US dates back to at least theCivil War.[21] The idea has possibly been influenced by "whitebread", a similar term for white people. "Soda cracker" and even "white soda cracker" have become extended versions of the epithet "cracker."[22]
"Cracker" has also been used as a proud or jocular self-description in the past.[23] With a huge influx of new residents from the North, "cracker" is used informally by some white residents ofFlorida andGeorgia ("Florida cracker" or "Georgia cracker") to indicate that their family has lived there for many generations.
Frederick Law Olmsted, a prominentlandscape architect fromConnecticut, visited the South as ajournalist in the 1850s and wrote that "some crackers owned a good many Negroes, and were by no means so poor as their appearance indicated."[24]
InOn the Origin of Species,Charles Darwin quotes a Professor Wyman as saying, "One of the 'crackers' (i.e. Virginia squatters) added, 'We select the black members of a litter [of pigs] for raising, as they alone have a good chance of living.'"
Late 19th century cattle drivers of the southeastern scrub land cracked whips to move cattle.[25] Many slaves and free blacks joined the Seminoles and found work in the cattle business.[26] Descendants of crackers are often proud of their heritage.[23]
In 1947, the student body ofFlorida State University voted on the name of their athletic symbol. From a list of more than 100 choices,Seminoles was selected. The other finalists, in order of finish, wereStatesmen,Rebels,Tarpons,Fighting Warriors, andCrackers.[27][28]
Before theMilwaukee Bravesbaseball team moved toAtlanta, the Atlantaminor league baseball team was known as the "Atlanta Crackers." The team existed under this name from 1901 until 1965. They were members of theSouthern Association from their inception until 1961, and members of theInternational League from 1961 until they were moved toRichmond, Virginia in 1965.
Singer-songwriterRandy Newman uses the term "cracker" in his song "Kingfish" ("I'm a cracker, You one too, Gonna take good care of you"). The song's subject isHuey Long, populist Governor and then Senator for Louisiana (1928–1935). The term is also used in his song "Louisiana 1927" from the same album, where the line "Ain't it a shame what the river has done to this poor cracker's land" is attributed toPresident Coolidge.
In his 2005 essay titled "Black Rednecks and White Liberals," American economist and social philosopherThomas Sowell argues that "ghetto"African-American culture originates dysfunctional white southernredneck culture, which came, in turn, from "cracker culture."
In 2008, former PresidentBill Clinton used the term "cracker" onLarry King Live to describe white voters he was attempting to win over forBarack Obama:
You know, they think that because of who I am and where my politic[al] base has traditionally been, they may want me to go sort of hustle up whatLawton Chiles used to call the 'cracker vote' there.[29]
TheFlorida Cracker Trail is a route which cuts across centralFlorida, following the historic trail of the old cattle drives.
On June 27, 2013, in thetrial of George Zimmerman concerning thekilling of Trayvon Martin, a witness under examination (Rachel Jeantel) testified that Martin, an African-American, had told her over the telephone that a "creepy ass cracker is following [me]" minutes before the altercation between the two occurred. Zimmerman's attorney then asked her if "creepy ass cracker" was an offensive term, to which she responded, "No." The testimony and response brought about both media and public debate about the use of the word "cracker." ACNN report referred to the regional nature of the term, noting both that "some in Florida use the term in a non-derogatory, colloquial sense" and that it is sometimes regarded as a "sharp racial insult that resonates with white southerners even if white northerners don't get it."[30]
One usage of the term "crackers" from 1783 described men who "descended from convicts that were transported from Great Britain to Virginia at different times, and inherit so much profligacy from their ancestors, that they are the most abandoned set of men on earth."[31]
In his 1790 memoirs,Benjamin Franklin referred to "a race of runnagates and crackers, equally wild and savage as the Indians" who inhabit the "desert[ed] woods and mountains."[32]
In his 1964 speech "The Ballot or the Bullet,"Malcolm X used the term "cracker" in a pejorative context.[33] In one passage, he remarked, "It's time for you and me to stop sitting in this country, letting some cracker senators, Northern crackers and Southern crackers, sit there in Washington, D.C., and come to a conclusion in their mind that you and I are supposed to have civil rights. There's no white man going to tell me anything about my rights."[33]
On November 29, 1993, in a speech given atKean College in New Jersey,Nation of Islam spokesmanKhalid Abdul Muhammad calledPope John Paul II "a no good cracker."[34]
In 2012, inJacksonville, Florida, Michael Dunn murderedJordan Davis in an argument over loud music coming from a car. Dunn alleged that he had heard the word "cracker" coming from the vehicle occupied by high school-age teenagers.[35][36][37] This claim, along with other details in Dunn's testimony, was not substantiated by other witnesses in the criminal proceedings.[38]
Specific
In the southern states of America, "cracker" is a term of contempt for the "poor" or "mean whites," particularly of Georgia and Florida
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