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Hi folks, first post. Earthmate gps app. I hope this is the correct place to ask this! So MTV has a new series of Social Justice focused lectures hosted by Franchesca Ramsey called Decoded. The latest one was about the origins of words used to insult white people like 'cracker', 'redneck' Etc. and her claim is that these words originate from upper class white communities disparaging their poorer white counterparts.
My question is this. Ramsey claims that the word 'cracker' originated from the British slang for 'cracked head', as in 'that bloke is crackers' and was used to insult the poor and working class. And that this trickled down into American slang to be used by blacks against whites but it not in any way a reference to the race of the people it's used against.
As a person who grew up in black communities and went to a school with a half blank population, I have heard it instead as a direct commentary on the whiteness of people's skin, such as 'you're as white as a saltine cracker'.
I have also heard conflicting claims that it references the whip that slavemasters used to carry in antebellum says.
Cracker Insult Origin Online
Different areas of the state embrace different theories. For example, the corncracker theory prevails in the Panhandle and along the Georgia border. In those areas, Cracker is considered an insult. Meanwhile, the whip cracker theory is popular in Central Florida. Cattle raisers in particular are proud to identify themselves as Crackers.
So, what do ya'll think? Is 'cracker' a British classist insult as Ramsey claims that is in no way racially coded? Where did it come from?
- The origin of the world’s most heinous racial slur. On the TV series The Jeffersons, George Jefferson regularly referred to a white person as a “honky” (or “whitey”) as did Redd Foxx on Sanford and Son. This word would later be popularized in episodes of Mork & Mindy by Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters. But what’s a honky.
- Ramsey claims that the word 'cracker' originated from the British slang for 'cracked head', as in 'that bloke is crackers' and was used to insult the poor and working class. And that this trickled down into American slang to be used by blacks against whites but it not in any way a reference to the race of the people it's used against.
Cracker Origin Of Term
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