White cracker

From Freepedia

"White cracker" or simply "cracker" was originally a pejorative term for a white person, mainly used by blacks in the Southern United States. In recent years (as of 2005), the term has gained some currency as a prideful self-description. With the huge influx of new residents from the North, the term 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.

As an insult, "cracker" was typically invoked against a white American, particularly (though not necessarily) lower-income, uneducated rural men in the South, particularly in Georgia.

There are various theories about the origin of the term "cracker." The term has been traced to the 1760s, when it was used by the Earl of Dartmouth to refer to frontiersmen who were "great boasters." It may be derived from the Gaelic "craic," meaning "entertaining conversation." Other theories include references to cracking a whip over oxen when driving cotton to market, and to the 18th century practice of cracking corn to make liquor. Others suggest that "cracker" derives from the white overseers who cracked the whip to intimidate black slaves. There may also be another possible origin - the first residents of Georgia were British convicts. In this setting the word takes on an illegal or criminal context. The term was used by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species to refer to "Virginia squatters" (illegal settlers).

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Politics

On August 20, 2000, Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge reported that Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager, called George W. Bush a "white cracker" while talking to New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams at the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

Pop culture

When used in pop culture, the term "white cracker" or "cracker" is sometimes intended to be humorous, though the distinction is not always clear.

An example is found in the popular American satirical cartoon television series South Park. One episode features the character "Chef" (who is black) planning to get married. The white children from the grade school where he works as a cook are at his home, waiting to see him to warn him off the marriage. While they wait on the sofa, Chef's elderly black father, as he is telling them a long-winded story about the Loch Ness Monster, refers to them as "little crackers."

The rustic lives of crackers were the topic of the novels of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

In the John Boorman film Deliverance, Lewis, played by Burt Reynolds, derisively refers to the rural people they encounter as being "crackers," implying that they were slow-witted hillbillies who lived in a world much different from that of he and his friends from a southern city.

In the film O Brother Where Art Thou?, the upper class white character "Pappy" O'Daniel, the Governor of Mississippi and host of the radio show "Flour Hour", meets a lower class and uneducated white character as he arrives at the radio station for his program. Pappy is told that he can make $10 for singing into a can inside, whereupon he snaps, "I'm not here to make a record, you dumb cracker."

Before the Milwaukee Braves baseball team moved to Atlanta, the Atlanta minor league baseball team was known as the "Atlanta Crackers." The team existed under this name from 1901 until 1965. They were members of the Southern Association from their inception until 1961, and members of the International League from 1961 until they were moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1965. Ironically, an Atlanta team in Negro League Baseball was known as the Atlanta "Black Crackers."

The Florida Cracker Trail is a route posted across southern Florida by the Florida Department of Transportation.

According to Latino comedian Carlos Mencia, the ultimate Cracker would be a white american male with his head shaved, a tribal armband tattoo on the right bicep, and a name such as Blake, Chad, or Chet. (However, this sounds more like an urban Skinhead.)

See also

External links

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