[senior citizen]

Other than a Keebler or Ritz cracker, what exactly is a "cracker" in the south?

Why is it a derogatory term? As a yankee, we should educate ourselves.

I typed in some current terms into my search engine, just to educate myself.

New Black Panthers Call For Race War, Burn Florida, Blood Shed, Kill Crackers, For Trayvon April 9th Day of Action | Wyld Goose

It doesn't really matter what year they said it, but this is all quite shocking to know that they are in large numbers in Sarasota, Florida.....as I read elsewhere.

For my own knowledge, I simply typed in "Black panthers in Florida" into my search engine and came up with a long list of their activities and hatreds against whites.........

There are many many many links, not just the one above. I read all of them.

Who is racist now??? Apparently they hate us "crackers" .
Now, where did I hear that word "crackers" used recently??????

************************************************** *******

Last week we watched a documentary on PBS about a man who had been imprisoned in solitary confinement for over 40 years in Louisiana; it was a documentary showing an artist who was communicating with this elderly Black Panther......and "building a house for him" based on what a long incarcerated prisoner would imagine as his ideal "home".........it was all imaginary after all, as she searched for the land upon which to build this home.........he's now at death's door while still in prison.......but truthfully, that was the first time I'd heard the term BLACK PANTHER since way back when.....didn't even know they were still in existence. Now I do understand why the warden of that prison felt that if he let the Black Panthers out, he'd have more problems on his hands then they could manage.

[kittygilchrist]

Florida Cracker Crumbs
I'm a bit young to be a cracker. but I am a boomer.

[wendyquat]

Modern usage[edit]

The term is used as a proud or jocular self-description. Since the huge influx of new residents into Florida from the northern parts of the United States and from Mexico and Latin America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the term "Florida Cracker" is used informally by some Floridians to indicate that their families have lived in the state for many generations. It is considered a source of pride to be descended from "frontier people who did not just live but flourished in a time before air conditioning, mosquito repellent, and screens."[3][4]

AND, I'm proud to be a Georgia cracker (same definition)

[ilovetv]

"Few people think of Florida as cowboy country, but one might say this was where the West began. It was here four centuries ago that Spanish settlers founded the first ranches in the future United States and introduced cattle and horses to lush prairies where buffalo roamed. As recently as 1895, there was still enough of the Wild West in Florida to attract artist Frederic Remington, famed for his portraits of frontier life. �With me cowboys are what gems and porcelains are to some others,� he wrote. The chance to add to his collection by capturing cowboys at work in the swamplands of the Deep South was not to be missed.

Florida�s pioneering Spanish rancheros and vaqueros (cowboys) were long gone when Remington arrived, but sturdy scrub cattle descended from animals they introduced still roamed the back country north of the Everglades, a setting he evoked in prose nearly as vivid as his pictures: �Flat and sandy, with miles of straight pine timber, each tree an exact duplicate of its neighbor tree, and underneath the scrub palmettoes, the twisted brakes and hammocks, and the gnarled water-oaks festooned with the sad gray Spanish moss�truly not a country for a high-spirited race or moral giants.�

Proud to be �Crackers�

Remington was referring here to the much-maligned white Southerners called Crackers, who inherited this country from Spanish settlers and from the Seminole and other Florida Indians. The label Cracker, which originally meant �boaster� or �braggart,� may have been applied to them because of the cracking of their whips as they herded cattle or the cracking of corn that produced grits and other down-home fare they favored.

In any case, the word came to define them. More than a few people in Florida and neighboring Georgia, where many of Florida�s first Anglo-American settlers emigrated from, now gladly call themselves Crackers and scoff at the notion purveyed by Yankees like Remington that Crackers are somehow morally deficient or lacking in spirit....."

Florida Crackers: America

[Patty55]

According to Rachel Jeantel it's spelled "Cracka". I thought it was like a redneck but she said it's like a cop.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cracka

[angiefox10]

Cracker:

Urban Dictionary: cracker

[kittygilchrist]

http://www.thehistorychannelclub.com...opical-cowboys
history channel. trust me. this is it.

[Topspinmo]

Come on we Know what a "Cracker " is! racial term used by racists to describe White red necks or whites in general...

[njbchbum]

you can see the rachel jeantel definition in this transcript from her piers morgan interview:
'MORGAN: Let's talk about creepy ass cracker. People have said that that is a phrase used by black people, cracker, to describe a white person. Is that true?
JEANTEL: No. Like I said --
MORGAN: How do you spell it, first of all?
JEANTEL: Cracker. Well --
MORGAN: There's no E-R, right? It's --
JEANTEL: No. It's A at the end.
MORGAN: C-R-A-C-K-A?
JEANTEL: Yes, and that's a person who act like they are police, who like (INAUDIBLE), who acting like, that's what I said to them. Trayvon said creepy ass cracka.
MORGAN: It means he thought it was a policeman or a security guy.
JEANTEL: Yes. Who's acting like a policeman and then he keeps telling me that the man still watch him. So if it was a security guard or a policeman, they would come up to Trayvon and say, do you have -- do you need -- do you have a problem, do you need help? You know, like normal people.

full transcript here: CNN.com - Transcripts

but where i worked in a great big city, the term referenced anyone with a flat azz - as in cracker!

[kittygilchrist]

I think it might an historic way to say red-neck.
Kitty
ps red-neck is not pejorative when I say it.

[njbchbum]

Originally Posted by Rc Moser

Come on we Know what a "Cracker " is! racial term used by racists to describe White red necks or whites in general...

sorry, rc - not in all circles.

[DougB]

Originally Posted by njbchbum

sorry, rc - not in all circles.

My family has been in Florida for hundreds of years. We helped found Tampa and are survivors of the Bradey Massacre (the last attack of settlers homestead east of the Mississippi in 1856). I am a cracker and take no offense to being called one.

[kittygilchrist]

Originally Posted by Rc Moser

Come on we Know what a "Cracker " is! racial term used by racists to describe White red necks or whites in general...

nonononono. please look it up.
I'm rural florida.
crackers are proud to be crackers.
cracker houses are amazing.
yep, racists can say cracker pejoratively...means nothing to real Crackers and rednecks.

[kittygilchrist]

Originally Posted by DougB

My family has been in Florida for hundreds of years. We helped found Tampa and are survivors of the Bradey Massacre (the last attack of settlers homestead east of the Mississippi in 1856). I am a cracker and take no offense to being called one.

cracker pride.

[DougB]

Maybe they moved the creepy ass cracker cowboy statue because someone took offense.