Let's talk about Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and how unbelievably fucked up this all is

It's only addressed briefly in the book, but yeah, it's the standard, "This just proves that Matias Reyes, who never ever ever had accomplices in any of his other rapes, participated in this rape with them." Also a particularly toxic pile of mouth shit from Ann Coulter.

Meanwhile, LOL Florida: Cop Testifying At Zimmerman Trial Wore Military Ribbons She Didn't Earn

Combat veteran Jeremiah Workman couldn't believe what he was seeing: a police officer testifying at the George Zimmerman murder trial was wearing military ribbons.
“Am I going blind or is this police officer in the Zimmerman-Martin trial wearing ribbons that she doesn’t rate?” He wrote beside a picture he posted to Facebook.

Gina Harkins of The Military Times saw his posting and reached out to Workman, who fought as a Marine in the second battle of Fallujah and was awarded the Navy Cross for valor.

She reports that Workman noticed two ribbons in particular — the World War II Army of Occupation Medal and the Defense Distinguished Service Medal.

Harkins writes "Workman got a hold of [The Sanford Police Department] and said they told him they didn’t have their own awards system, so they went to the Army-Navy store around the corner and picked out Defense Department military ribbons to fit their own format. The WWII was selected, the police department official told Workman, because they knew there weren’t many veterans from that period alive so they didn’t think people would notice."

lol Sanford

I can reassure you, Dan, that no one in my condo eats Cheetos.

The New Republic ‏@tnr 11m
Is Trayvon Martin's use of "cracker" the equivalent of a white person using the N-word? John McWhorter responds. http://on.tnr.com/14L5Ciy

jesus fucking christ i hate that angle of inquiry

admittedly I've never lived in Sanford, but my grandparents did when I was a kid, and I used to do theatre out there. I don't know much about their police dept other than they seem very much like the Keystone Kops.

One time I accidentally set off the theatre's alarm downtown (an area typically swarming with police). I was surprised that it took them pretty long to arrive, and when they did, they basically took my word that "oh lol it was just a mistake" and drove off. Even though I was in civilian clothes and they had no reason to believe I was affiliated with the theatre. I would have expected them to be more curious, given that the one time I set my home alarm off by mistake as a kid, the police came to the house and asked for some proof of it being my place (which being a kid, I could just show the pictures hanging on the walls).

On another instance, a cop hit our stage manager's SUV (apparently a stop sign was obscured by construction), and knocked her wheel clean off. Naturally, they managed to pin it all on her, despite her perfectly valid argument that a combination of said obstruction and irresponsible driving on the cop's part lead to the accident. (I didn't even like this stage manager, either!)

yes, analogizing someone to a slavemaster with a whip is directly equivalent to implying they are subhuman

The New Republic

...and moving on.

I mean it's actually hard to think of a better way to demonstrate the difference between white and black "racism" than just to point out the difference between being called a slur that means a person who whips and a slur that means a person who should be whipped.

yes, analogizing someone to a slavemaster with a whip is directly equivalent to implying they are subhuman

― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, July 2, 2013 12:15 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

These kinds of thoughts are common-place in older folk, as they use a form of circular reasoning. My parents use it. They begin by asking a loaded rhetorical question - "Isn't all racism bad?", or the 'equal-playing field' approach. Then, if you introduce context, or pointing out that the n-word carries a loaded meaning given the country's history that the word "cracker" doesn't, the argument spins to "white guilt"; or 'slavery/Jim Crow was in the past, why can't they move on from that? It's their insistence on dredging up the past that's causing all of this!'.

Nevermind, of course, that the word's history gives it its context, regardless as to whether said person was alive when it was used in such a way, and such context can't be stripped from the word when we live in a society in which racism is still very present. So then if you point that out, they hop to the "b-b-but they use it themselves" argument (which I won't get into as nabisco summed this up quite hilariously and otm years ago).

And then they jump to the false equivalencies. "Well, a customer told me she wanted to give her business to a hispanic employee. THAT'S racist!". No, it isn't - minorities wanting to band together is understandable, much more so than a majority wanting to do so as that is exclusionary.

It's pointless arguing with these folk as they don't have the faculties to see beyond "doesn't A=B".

I have always associated "cracker" with saltines; slavemasters/whips never once crossed my mind

there's also too many Cap'n Save-a-Crackers out there who, for some reason, feel like it is a crime to admit that some of their own race are assholes. these are the folks that, when you point out a hideous example of racism against a minority, will always reply not by addressing the racism, but by going "WELL MY FRIEND BUBBA TOLD ME THAT A BLACK GUY WAS ORNERY TO HIM LAST WEEK, WHERE WAS THE OUTRAGE WHEN THAT HAPPENED?"

xpost lol

Before the Milwaukee Braves baseball team moved to Atlanta, Georgia, the Atlanta minor league baseball team was known as the "Atlanta Crackers". The team existed under this name from 1901 until 1965. They were members of the Southern Association from their inception until 1961, and members of the International League from 1961 until they were moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1965. However, it is suggested the name was derived from players "cracking" the baseball bat and this origin makes sense[citation needed] when considering the Atlanta Negro League Baseball team was known as the "Atlanta Black Crackers".

I mean

Black Crackers, y'all

I feel like my world has been turned upside-down

blackened crackers would be awesome

a nice salad bar appetizer perhaps

but yeah crackers are white, white people are white, the insult seemed pretty straightforward to me

IDK I always thought it was pretty clear it originated from whip cracker, even if that meaning has gotten buried.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_%28pejorative%29

this is fascinating, apparently "cracker" has been around since the early 19th century (I had no idea, I thought someone made it up in the 70s)

otoh we could both be wrong:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cracker

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. [1766, G. Cochrane]

(from what i understand) 'cracker' was a term invented by whites for other whites. originally it was a term of abuse of low-class (presumably scots-irish) whites who liked to get drunk ('the crack'), and so functionally identical to 'redneck'. considering it was lower-class white men who were given the job of actually physically managing slave populations, well, there you go. the crazy white people you deal with directly are the ones they call crackers.

i should look up where i read this tho.

xp wiki seems to agree on the scots-irish thing

don't call me cracker, limey

surely there is some relation to the food term in this history

like did crackers eat crackers sometimes?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3407/3591658682_9982133a57.jpg

An alternative theory holds that the term comes from the common diet of poor whites. The 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica supposes that the term derives from the cracked (kernels of) corn which formed the staple food of this class of people.[11]

No war but a class war

Btw

The drink itself is not the craic, but it is a decent vehicle oftentimes to get there

To the craicmobile!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyX7uEsScg4

whip crackers never occurred to me either, that just makes no sense as an insult.
"You stupid gunslinger!"

Yeah, "You stupid boss-of-me!"

nah it's like calling them out as the oppressor, the man's running dog, etc. is what I thought anyway

Yeah, fairly redolent of the 'overseer class' - also must reference 'Jimmy crack corn'.

always thought "crackers are white, whites are crackers" occams razor approach
no one has ever called me a cracker to my face, pretty sure i would be less offended and more like "wow really?"

i've never been called a cracker, but i have been called a "white nigga", which I guess is a little more racially sensitive.

Was it by Elvis Costello? If so he meant something else.

the one and only.

hey guys, do yourselves a favor and don't look up cracker on urban dictionary.

yeah that never even crossed my mind

my dad likes to use the "they call us honkies" argument, i have to gently remind him that nobody in the UK has used that word since Love Thy Neighbour went off air

for your own sanity, nobody google Love Thy Neighbour. it's like All in the Family without the nuance

so basically most of the world has adopted Nude Spock and/or Squirrel Police's politics

i think a sizeable chunk of the world has always rocked those politics

tryin to imagine a bunch of middle-aged to elder crackers sobbing in a room after being called "cracker" and...y'know...I'm just not buyin it

All I'm getting is a circle of old jerks making the pugnacious chin-out frat-face at one another.

now imagine they're black

/mcconaghey face

I see what you did there (last summer).

Bill O'Reilly floated the question: was Jamie Foxx being racially insensitive by wearing a Trayvon shirt to an awards ceremony