Poll question: Question for black American DUers: RE: "Honky Cracker"

[trumad]

Is a Honky cracker a....

[Generator]

1. Honkey has an E in it?

You are over your head, Trumad. Surrender now.

[trumad]

3. "E"....what are you talking about...

;-) ;-) LOL

Thanks

[John Q. Citizen]

2. A guy who posts a poll like yours? n/t

[TahitiNut]

4. Other: Lester Maddox

:shrug: (... or Zell Miller.)

[Swamp Rat]

5. A backwater horn-blower?

:D

From WikiPedia:

"Cracker (sometimes "white cracker") was originally a pejorative term for a white person, mainly used in the Southern United States, and still is in many instances. It has also, however, increasingly been used as a proud (or self-deprecating) term by some Southern whites—or American whites in general—in reference to themselves."

(snip)

Usage:

The term "cracker" was and is used most frequently in the South, especially in Georgia and Florida. Since the 1870s a nickname for Georgia is "The Cracker State", which is displayed proudly with no hint of insult.

Historically the word suggested poor, white rural Americans with little formal education. Historians point out the term originally referred to the strong Scots-Irish of the backcountry (as opposed to the English of the seacoast). Thus a sociologist reported in 1926, "As the plantations expanded these freed men (formerly bond servants) were pushed further and further back upon the more and more sterile soil. They became 'pinelanders,' 'corn-crackers,' or 'crackers.'" Frederick Law Olmsted, a prominent landscape architect from the northern United States, visited the South as a journalist in the 1850s and noted that some crackers "owned a good many negroes, and were by no means so poor as their appearance indicated."

Usage of the term "cracker" generally differs from "hick" and "hillbilly" because crackers reject or resist assimilation into the dominant culture, while hicks and hillbillies theoretically are isolated from the dominant culture. In this way, the cracker is similar to the redneck. In the African American community, "cracker" is a disparaging term for whites. (The OED cites the 1830s origin of white trash as a word used by slaves on rich plantations to ridicule poor whites.)

Since 1900 "cracker" has become a proud or jocular self-description. With the huge influx of new residents from the North, "cracker" 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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cracker

[gratuitous]

6. I suppose if a black person called me a honky cracker

I'd be as likely to laugh as any other response. Those words truly have no power over me whatsoever.

[TrueFunkSoldier]

10. LOL!! My white roommate is a proud "crackah"

She prides herself as the "crackah" chick with a "crackah" ass, i.e., a white girl with no ass. LOL!!

Thanks for the much-needed laugh...

[niyad]

7. is there some special reason these polls are being done on what most

intelligent people KNOW are racial slurs of one kind or another? are you trying to give them some sort of legitimacy?

quite frankly, these posts are annoying, and rather offensive. I don't talk like that, nobody I know talks like that, and we see no necessity for bringing it up.

[trumad]

9. No

I'm trying to lighten up this forum and unpucker some asses. It aint always easy here at DU, but I try.

[The Deacon]

8. I Worked

With a gay white man in Huntsville, Alabama - he considered "cracker" to be the worst thing anyone could call him - it has a real connotation of rural, uneducated, and unsophisticated (in a negative way.)

[valerief]

11. Er, it's either Mitt Romney or Tony Snow. You know, the Slur Twins. n/t

[jdlh8894]

12. Tad before my time

But research ( or Google ) Atlanta Black Crackers -You might learn that "cracker" does not only apply to "white folk".

[Love Bug]

13. I prefer "white trash" myself, but YMMV

[pinto]

14. Locked.

We don't allow "copycat" threads in General Discussion. They often foster more copycats and end up clogging the forum for topical discussions. Thanks.