General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLet me get this straight, re: the suddenly acceptable racial slur
"Silly people! White people aren't oppressed, so it's perfectly acceptable to oppress them by applying a slur!"
Is that pretty much the size of it? Because that makes NO sense whatsoever. All it does is legitimize slurs.
But don't listen to me...I'm just a stupid cracker.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)It explains why there are no new posters on the new posters list on the main page.
Mirt must be busy.
uppityperson
(115,674 posts)Looks look like racist troll has been keeping them hopping. Thanks mirt!
snooper2
(30,151 posts)homophobic-
FYI
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)annabanana
(52,791 posts)the term was referencing ignorance more than race. But I'm a northern gal so I may not have the nuances.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Words that are part of a history of oppression, in that context, can be a part of the oppression.
But a word doesn't have that power without society giving it that power, and society hasn't given "cracker" that power, because the group against whom it is used as a slur is also the group that actually has the overwhelming majority of power.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)Racial slurs, yes
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Racial slurs are words, and words in and of themselves have no power unless they're in a context of oppression. The vast majority of power in this country belongs to white people. White people are not oppressed.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)You made that up. They disparage people based upon their skin color, which is racist.
Lancero
(2,984 posts)So does this mean that white women aren't victims of oppression?
This is the issue, really, when trying to say a group is free of oppression. Oppression comes in many diffrient varities. The poor are oppressed. Women are oppressed. People of colors are oppressed. LGBT persons are oppressed. Given how so many groups interlink it's impossible for one specific group to be completely free of it.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)JustAnotherGen
(31,688 posts)On that thread - for me?
The 'message' got lost with the word.
Because he had a REALLY good message - but when you use your words wrong - that's what happens.
I made the suggestion early in the thread that the edit it out. Because his point was gonna get lost -
And it has been.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)If the people at which it is directed object - we probably shouldn't use it.
It seems to me that it shouldn't be so tough to comply.
Personally, I prefer to be addressed in terms other than "stupid cracker". Since I comply with the general etiquette, I think it's reasonable to ask that others reciprocate.
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)While I agree with gollygee that a term associated with a group that hasn't been historically oppressed doesn't have the power that a term directed toward an historically oppressed group has, I wholeheartedly agree that if the people on the receiving end of a term object to it, we shouldn't use it.
I learned that on DU, with regard to other words that many people don't find offensive, but some do.
Feels weird to agree with you.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Zorra
(27,670 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)And therefore not one of those crackers?
Thanks, I guess
morningfog
(18,115 posts)I know that when I hear someone use the word cracker, I have no reason to assume I am being called a cracker.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)The context of the now self-deleted thread was that white people are "infiltrating" police departments and that is why police will never be less brutal than they are.
35 years ago, I worked with a guy from Atlanta who tried to explain to me that the N word wasn't a racist term, because it was about behavior. "I know lots of N_______, and a bunch of them are white!"
The term has a well known definition, and whether or not you think they're talking about you is irrelevant. There was nothing about the usage that suggested any intent other than the common use e.g. "white people" in general.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)But, it sounds like you identify as a cracker or at least sufficiently so to take offense.
Crackers are white racists. It isn't about behavior, it is about asshole white racists. I don't think there are black crackers, but I don't think all white people are crackers. I think only a racist cracker would take offense at the term cracker. Someone who already has a problem with African-Americans would likely get worked up is one dared to call them a cracker.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)No. It was about crackers, like you and me, some of whom are racists.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)You are choosing to accept the label as directed at you.
Mosby
(16,168 posts)Cracker, sometimes white cracker or cracka, is a usually derogatory term for white people,[1] especially poor rural whites in the Southern United States. In reference to a native of Florida or Georgia, however, it is sometimes used in a neutral or positive context or self-descriptively with pride (see Florida cracker and Georgia cracker).[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_%28pejorative%29
crackers as "white racists" is just something you made up.
Why?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)So, no, it's not "acceptable" in that it pisses you off.
Next question?
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)nt
Recursion
(56,582 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)How precisely, as a target of that word, am I being oppressed or minimized? I could do some ethical contortions worthy of an acrobat to pretend to be offended by this most benign pejorative, but as so many already engage in that melodramatic pretense, it would simply be "a very little, little let us do and all shall be done..."
Fishing for an offense is convenient for scoring points... as we'll always find one-- even in places where they do not exist. No doubt, you can find a cross to hang from in comfortable and complacent martyrdom on Amazon.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)It actually illustrates white privilege quite well.
Put yourself in the shoes of a black person being called the N word.
Being called a cracker is nothing like that.
It's how comedian Eddie Murphy could get away with singing "Kill all the white people" and have white people laughing their asses off at that. I remember him doing this poem "I hate white people" and laughing. We know it's not a threat. Whereas there is no way to make the opposite funny, as it contains a threatening element.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)The Scots Irish who settled the South told many a tall tale. Hence "craikers", now "crackers".
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)other older words and it is used to mean a bellicose rustic, a gas bag hick. A cracker comes from the country and talks shit. The Georgia and Florida ranchers used it and it was applied to them for just those reasons.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)hunter
(38,264 posts)People are understandably angry about that.
And no, I don't often listen to you, Dreamer Tatum. The world you write about doesn't seem real to me.
If it truly exists somewhere I've always been an outsider.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)We all do not fit your self serving bigoted description of white people. It offends me.
As far as I am concerned you don't even belong in an honest discussion about the issue of racism. You remind me of Malcolm X before his trip to Mecca.
tkmorris
(11,138 posts)So, points for that.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)It still can be bigoted. I think a lot of white people have indulged in a kind of group guilt complex since the police shootings have been the main issue of the day.
Those who want to continue the name calling will never get to a solution of the problem. Only those of all races working together will be effective.
hunter
(38,264 posts)"Races?" That's even worse, but God Forbid I ever pretend to be "colorblind."
Oppression of "colored" people by "white" people is an awful reality.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)Very dramatic but useless when it comes to solving a problem.
hunter
(38,264 posts)I'm much much too lazy for convenient fictions, absolutes, and blanket statements.
I write about my life as I experience it.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)I was born white in 1946 in Ohio. That was a year before Truman integrated the military services.
In Dayton Ohio where I grew up the African American community was called the west side because it was west of Main Street.
Segregation and racism was the norm when I grew up. My mom showed me a picture of a boarding house on the west side on Home Ave, where she lived before she married my dad. It was an integrated house. She also showed me a picture of her Black house mates.
My mom did not teach us to be racists. She taught us just the opposite. My dad was a factory worker and as such he had a lot of peer pressure to be a racist but he never taught us to be racist. The only thing I can remember my dad saying that was racist was to tell me to turn off the (n word) music I liked to play. I loved Soul, Motown and what was called back then "race music."
Our house was egged because my dad would not contribute to buy a house on our block that was being sold to a Black family.
I can go on but it isn't necessary.
I never learned racism and to many on this board I probably would be told I am full if shit.
I just like to point out as Malcolm X pointed out that we aren't all devils. We can have empathy and can help the situation as we did in the sixties. We can never live in a Black skin or know what that is like.
This is not post racial America but I remember the 50's and 60's and there has been progress but it has been slow. I did not know anything about life in Ferguson until Michael Brown was killed. That shows how bad it really is.
I think we need to stop centering on labels and generalities. I don't think those posts get us anywhere.
hunter
(38,264 posts)One of my great grandmas fled Ohio with her husband to the wild west because matriarchy was no longer acceptable there.
The men in my family tend to be the dreamers and the women are hard.
My great grandmas were all Wild West like that.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)LOL! Couldn't help it. I'm gross.
hunter
(38,264 posts)bravenak
(34,648 posts)hfojvt
(37,573 posts)does not seem real to me either.
hunter
(38,264 posts)upaloopa
(11,417 posts)prejudice to posts here on DU ignoring the race of the poster or the intended receiver of the post we let a lot of bad things go.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)Whether you consider one a slur largely depends on whether you consider the other a slur. For nearly all of its history, the word "cracker" has been used to refer to poor rural whites, especially in the south. Rednecks, hicks, hillbillies, poor white trash, crackers...they all mean the same thing.
hunter
(38,264 posts)My dad's family was hiding the radical Irish Catholic, a few steps ahead of the English hangman immigrants, and my mom's family was hiding heretic Catholic and Jewish immigrants.
They hit the ground running for the American Wild West in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Many of my wife's family "arrived" here via Canada and Mexico, a generation or two after things got too hot for them here in Protestant U.S.A., as uppity native Americans and gone-AWOL Irish and French Catholics.
I'm a white humanist Catholic heretic of Jesuit and Orthodox Christian San Francisco. I won't ever apologize for that,
Response to Dreamer Tatum (Original post)
Corruption Inc This message was self-deleted by its author.
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)Honestly. I'm curious to find out how the word is oppressive.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)I give in.
Cracker good. Good cracker.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)Response to Dreamer Tatum (Reply #37)
1000words This message was self-deleted by its author.
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)Words really do mean something, and equating 'cracker' with 'oppressive' is just wrong.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)Cracker Clinton or Cracker Warren?
Hard to decide. Two qualified crackers.
Oh well. The primary process will winnow out the superior cracker. But another candidate may get the nomination
after all. Maybe even another cracker.
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)I personally prefer the Sanders variety cracker.
Response to Dreamer Tatum (Reply #54)
1000words This message was self-deleted by its author.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Too bad you merely gave-in rather than attempted to understand historical and social context. But, with the latter being much more difficult than the convenience of the former, I understand why you chose the one over the other.
cpwm17
(3,829 posts)It's a pejorative used against white people. If you find this perfectly acceptable, I don't know what to say. It certainly won't attract many new members here or gain the Democratic Party many votes when it is openly used on a site call Democratic Underground.
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)What I would like to have an answer to is exactly how that is oppressive to whites.
cpwm17
(3,829 posts)We shouldn't promote hate, especially for something one has no control over and shouldn't be ashamed of. Anyone can be harmed if they are subjected to hate and the hater can be harmed also.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)insulting, sure. oppressive, no fucking way.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)and now there aren't enough to go around anymore so all the breeders have to turn gay or marry their dogs. We warned everyone this would happen. But no. You had to elect Obama. Twice. There are no crackers in my house because GLUTEN! I hate this gluten thing.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)"perfectly acceptable to oppress them by applying a slur"
See, the thing is, the amount of "oppression" actually created by this particular slur is so negligbly small that it is highly ludicrous to even attach the word "oppression" to it. Might as well be oppressed by that micro-meteorite that just landed on my head. It's like crying that anther kid just threw a dust bunny at you.
SNL did a skit once where a guy was doing stand up comedy in a bar - in 1775. He was cracking jokes about Redcoats and King George, then three redcoats come in, carrying guns with sabres and sit down at a table. As he continues his routine, they start grumbling and rattling their sabres. Finally one gets up and starts walking toward him.
So he modifies his joke, adding "But what do I know? I am just a dumb colonist." At which line the redcoats burst out laughing. And the skit fades with him using that line again and again as the redcoats pound on the table laughing.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Sorry you have the sadz.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)of folks I went to school with in the deep South, a lot of TPartiers, etc. I'll try not to use the term in mixed company, but ain't makin any promises.
SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)Sorry, normally I have to go to Fox to get my "poor oppressed white guy" fix.
Is the next thread gonna be about the oppression of Christians?
Behind the Aegis
(53,833 posts)Sadly, because people equate "wrongness" with who has or doesn't have power, when the slur is applied to those with power, it 'magically' becomes non-offensive. To me, this is no different than someone calling a non-gay person a "breeder." Does that word carry the same gravitas as calling someone a "fag" or a "dyke" (or hundreds of alternate words)? No, it doesn't, but like "faggot" or "dyke", the word "breeder" is used as a disparaging remark against someone because of his/her perceived/real sexual orientation; the same holds true for "cracker" which is used to belittle someone because of his/her skin color. Just because someone is "white" or "straight" doesn't mean they are immune from being victimized by a slur which targets their race or sexual orientation, even if it isn't as "weighted" as those used against minorities.
Louisiana1976
(3,962 posts)Warpy
(110,913 posts)and I laugh that one off. In fact, I laugh most slurs off unless some pimple of an adolescent troll is using really harsh sexual slurs to force me offline. It can't be done, sonny, I used to try to make perverts hang up on me back in the obscene phone call days and most of the time I succeeded. My mother used an air horn. I used descriptions of what was going to happen to Wee Willie Winkie.
So please don't include me in the rush to ban all mild pejoratives and most descriptive language.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)African Americans, are "wrong" about something, this little protest of yours would be slightly more credible.
Just sayin', homey.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Little minds talk about other people.
Average minds talk about events.
Great minds talk about ideas.
The lesson? Ad hominem attacks offensive to either "us" or "them" just make your mind look little.
I KNOW DUers are actually bigger than little minds, I just wish all of them would demonstrate that.