Cracker (term)
Cracker, sometimes cracka or white cracker, is a
Etymology
The exact history and etymology of the word is debated.[6]
The term is "probably an agent noun"[7] from the word crack. The word crack was later adopted into Gaelic as the word craic meaning a "loud conversation, bragging talk"[8][9] where this interpretation of the word is still in use in Ireland, Scotland, and Northern England today.
The historical derivative of the word
The word was later documented describing a group of "Celtic immigrants, Scotch-Irish people who came to America running from political circumstances in the old world".[11][12] This usage is illustrated in a 1766 letter to the Earl of Dartmouth which reads:[13]
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 the Scotch-Irish American immigrants, who were often seen by officials as "unruly and ill-mannered"[11] 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"[11] as is the case with other events of linguistical reappropriation.
The compound corn-cracker was used of poor white farmers (by 1808), especially from Georgia, but also extended to residents of northern Florida, from the cracked kernels of
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.[17][18][19] Whips were also cracked over pack animals,[20][21] so "cracker" may have referred to whip-cracking more generally. According to An American Glossary (1912):[22]
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 modern
Usage
Meliorative and neutral usage
"Cracker" has also been used as a proud or jocular self-description in the past.[25] With the huge influx of new residents from the North, "cracker" is 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.
Frederick Law Olmsted, a prominent landscape architect from Connecticut, visited the South as a journalist in the 1850s and wrote that "some crackers owned a good many Negroes, and were by no means so poor as their appearance indicated."[26]
In On 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.[27] Many slaves and free blacks joined the Seminoles and found work in the cattle business.[28] Descendants of crackers are often proud of their heritage.[25]
In 1947, the student body of
Before the
Singer-songwriter Randy Newman, on his socio-politically themed album Good Old Boys (1974) uses the term "cracker" on the song "Kingfish" ("I'm a cracker, You one too, Gonna take good care of you"). The song's subject is Huey Long, populist Governor and then Senator for Louisiana (1928–1935). The term is also used in "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 to President Coolidge.
In his essay titled "Black Rednecks and White Liberals", published in 2005, American economist and social philosopher Thomas Sowell argues, that the "ghetto" African-American culture originates in the dysfunctional white southern redneck culture, which came, in turn, from the "Cracker culture".
The Florida Cracker Trail is a route which cuts across central Florida, following the historic trail of the old cattle drives.
On June 27, 2013, in the
Pejorative usage
A 1783 pejorative use of crackers specified 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".[33]
Benjamin Franklin, in his memoirs (1790), referred to "a race of runnagates and crackers, equally wild and savage as the Indians" who inhabit the "desert[ed] woods and mountains".[34]
In his 1964 speech "The Ballot or the Bullet", Malcolm X used the term "cracker" in reference to white people in a pejorative context.[35] 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."[35]
On November 29, 1993, in a speech given at
In 2012, in
See also
- Buckra
- Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell
- Hillbilly
- Honky
- Jimmy Crack Corn
- List of ethnic slurs and epithets by ethnicity
- Peckerwood
- Poor White
- Social class in the United States
- White Anglo-Saxon Protestants
- White trash
References
Specific
- ISBN 9780679736479. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
- ^ Foreman, Tom. "'Cracker' conveys history of bigotry that still resonates". CNN. Cable News Network. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
- ^ "Cracker". Merriam Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved 30 November 2018.
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 359.
In the southern states of America, "cracker" is a term of contempt for the "poor" or "mean whites," particularly of Georgia and Florida
- ^ Ste. Claire, Dana (2006). Cracker: Cracker Culture in Florida History. University Press of Florida.
- ^ Foreman, Tom (2013-07-01). "'Cracker' conveys history of bigotry that still resonates". CNN. Retrieved 2021-12-19.
- ^ "cracker | Search Online Etymology Dictionary". www.etymonline.com. Retrieved 2021-12-18.
- ISBN 978-0-7171-4039-8.
- ^ "Old times there are just not quite forgotten". Irish Literary Supplement. 26 (1): 12–13. 2006-09-22.
- ISBN 9780679736479. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
- ^ a b c Demby, Gene (2013-07-01). "The Secret History Of The Word 'Cracker'". NPR. Retrieved 2021-12-17.
- OCLC 71267828.
- ^ Burrison, John A. (2002). "Arts & Culture". Crackers. Archived from the original on October 9, 2012. Retrieved September 29, 2013.
{{cite book}}
:|work=
ignored (help) - ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 359.
- ^ "cracker". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. 1989. definition 4.
- ^ Harkins, Anthony (2012-01-01). "Hillbillies, Rednecks, Crackers and White Trash". History Faculty Publications.
- ^ Smitherman, Geneva (2000). Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner. Houghton Mifflin Books. p. 100.
- ^ Herbst, Philip H. (1997). The Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States. Intercultural Press. p. 6z1.
- ISBN 978-0-14-051306-6.
- ^ Buckingham, James S. (1842), The Slave States of America, Fisher, Son, & Co., p. 210
- ^ "Cattle and Cowboys in Florida". FCIT.USF.edu. Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida. 2002.
- ^ Thornton, Richard H. (1912). An American Glossary. JB Lippincott. pp. 218–219.
- ISBN 9781561648528. Retrieved May 11, 2021 – via Google Books.
- . Retrieved May 11, 2021.
- ^ a b "A History of the Florida Cracker Cowboys". Tampa Magazine. 2018-07-03. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
- ^ Olmsted, Frederick Law (1856). Our Slave States. Dix & Edwards. p. 454.
- ^ "Florida Cracker Cattle Association". www.floridacrackercattle.org. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
- ^ Weeks, Linton (September 2015). "The Black Cowboys Of Florida". NPR.org. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
- ^ "FSU Adopts Seminoles as the Nickname for Athletic Teams". Nolefan.org. Retrieved 2010-11-01.
- ^ "www.garnetandgreat.com". www.garnetandgreat.com. Retrieved 2010-11-01.
- ^ Smith, Ben (2008-09-24). "Bill Clinton: Will respect Jewish holidays, then 'hustle up ... cracker vote' in Florida – Ben Smith". Politico. Retrieved 2010-11-01.
- ^ Foreman, Tom. "'Cracker' conveys history of bigotry that still resonates", CNN, 2 July 2013, accessed 30 July 2013.
- ISBN 9780393079494– via Google Books.
- ^ Franklin, Benjamin (1790). Memoirs of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin: With a review of his pamphlet, entitled "Information to those who would wish to remove to America". London: A. Grant – via Google Books. Published posthumously, editor unknown.
- ^ a b X, Malcolm. "The Ballot or the Bullet". Retrieved 25 March 2012.
- ^ "Farrakhan Invited To Speak at School". The New York Times. 1994-03-05.
- ^ "Did White Male Insecurity Kill Jordan Davis? - the Root". Archived from the original on 2014-02-22. Retrieved 2014-02-22.
- ^ Walker, Tim (2014-02-16). "Hung jury for Michael Dunn, white killer of unarmed black teenager Jordan Davis". The Independent. London.
- ^ "Accused "Loud Music" Shooter Dunn: "It was life or death"". CBS News. 2014-02-11.
- ^ McLaughlin, Eliott C. (2014-02-06). "Did Jordan Davis have weapon? Attorneys spar in loud music murder trial". CNN. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
General
- Brown, Roger Lyle. Ghost Dancing on the Cracker Circuit: The Culture Festivals in the American South (1997)
- Burke, Karanja. "Cracker"
- Croom, Adam M. (2011). "Slurs". Language Sciences. 33 (3): 343–358. .
- Cassidy, Frederic G. Dictionary of American Regional English. Harvard University Press, Vol. I, 1985: 825–26
- De Graffenried, Clare. "The Georgia Cracker in the Cotton Mills." Century 41 (February 1891): 483–98.
- Keen, George Gillett and Williams, Sarah Pamela. Cracker Times and Pioneer Lives: The Florida Reminiscences of George Gillett Keen and Sarah Pamela Williams edited by James M Denham and Canter Brown Jr. U of South Carolina Press 2000
- Major, Clarence (1994). Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang. Puffin Books.
- McWhiney, Grady. Confederate Crackers and Cavaliers. (Abilene, Tex.: McWhiney Foundation Press, c. 2002. Pp. 312. ISBN 1-893114-27-9, collected essays)
- McWhiney, Grady. Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988).
- Otoo, John Solomon. "Cracker: The History of a Southeastern Ethnic, Economic, and Racial Epithet", Names' 35 (1987): 28–39.
- Osley, Frank L. Plain Folk of the Old South (1949)
- Presley, Delma E. "The Crackers of Georgia", Georgia Historical Quarterly 60 (summer 1976): 102–16.
External links
- Cracker Archived 2012-10-09 at the Wayback Machine – Entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia