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White-gaf: Have you ever been called a cracker?

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daycru said:
You're divorcing data from people. If you live in the hood, the hood is your sociological context. It means jack shit that your race wields legislative power or there are more in your state that look like you. You shouldn't be hurt when people ostracize you as an other or threaten you? That's ridiculous, and no amount of "well, slavery" is going to change my mind.
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Yeah, this is all pretty much completely wrong. If you live in a poor neighborhood, it doesn't make you not white, nor does it remove the privilege inherent in being white. It doesn't change hundreds of years of history, racial demographics, or socio-political structures of the country.

But don't let me stop you from having hurt feelings. Everyone is welcome to feel what they want.
 
besada said:
Yeah, this is all pretty much completely wrong. If you live in a poor neighborhood, it doesn't make you not white, nor does it remove the privilege inherent in being white. It doesn't change hundreds of years of history, racial demographics, or socio-political structures of the country.

But don't let me stop you from having hurt feelings. Everyone is welcome to feel what they want.
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That avatar... if I die from laughter I'm coming back to haunt you :lol
 
besada said:
I didn't actually say anyone should accept it, nor did I lower the bar for anyone. I said it's not particularly reasonable to be hurt by it, given that racial slurs are damaging because of their sociological context, not their inherent phonemes. I don't think that's a particularly controversial point.

You are welcome to be upset by it, and welcome to call people on it, so long as you're aware that you're creating a false equivalence by suggesting the behavior is the same. The only way to believe that is to remove it entirely from the context of history, which is why when folks do that, they get laughed at.
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The poster you quoted specifically acknowledged that contextual difference. If a word is used to cause offense, is it not reasonable to be offended regardless of context? I don't think it's wise to presume someone is automatically creating a false equivalence based solely on their being upset at being called a cracker.
 
Any cunt calls me a Thanos gets this upside the head. Don't start none won't be none.

nT95cfA.jpg
 
I remember once walking home, there were 3 schools in the area which all shared a bus park, 2 grammar schools and 1 other school which was a bit rough. The bus park was located inside the rougher school and they had to enact fences to stop the rough kids from ganging up on the grammar kids, there were often fights, eventually it had to chaperoned. The bus park was also the main route to the grammar school from one side of town, so around 80% of the people who went to the grammar school had to walk through it to get to school and leave, if they were on a bus or not.

One thing the school system did to make sure that there was no latent bullying on the way home was make the Grammar schools school end half hour after the rough school, it weeded out most of the kids so that the grammar schools could remain hassle free. Generally speaking this worked for the bus park but the problem was that the detention time for kids in the rough school was 40 mins. This meant that if you walked home you would encounter the kids who had just got out of detention on a daily basis, meaning that on occasion there would be issues.

I was walking home this one day and there were 3 kids behind me, one was black and two were white, they were id say a year older than me. The black kid behind me started shouting at me, calling me a bigot, then doing that thing kids sometimes do "You hear what he said?" where the other two go "OOOOO he just said something racist". It was strange because I was perfectly silent. So they start walking faster after me and the two white kids walk past and the black kid does a little run up and hits me on the side of the face and says "Blacks back".

No I dont mind being called a cracker
 
Should have said "purple-GAF" for perfection.
 
The only people who appear to think I am white are the police. Every time I have gotten a ticket, they think I am white. I am Hispanic/Asian.

Sometimes I put "white" as my race if I want to get a call in for a job interview.

But I'm not white.
 
besada said:
I didn't actually say anyone should accept it, nor did I lower the bar for anyone. I said it's not particularly reasonable to be hurt by it, given that racial slurs are damaging because of their sociological context, not their inherent phonemes. I don't think that's a particularly controversial point.

You are welcome to be upset by it, and welcome to call people on it, so long as you're aware that you're creating a false equivalence by suggesting the behavior is the same. The only way to believe that is to remove it entirely from the context of history, which is why when folks do that, they get laughed at.
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Ok, I wasn't reading that vibe in the tread which is why I responded.
 
I get called "cracker" and "white boy" all the time in DC. The words aren't as bad as the tone/threatening way that they're said. Always fun being a case manager in the community. I even made a poem about a lady, most certainly schizophrenic, calling me "white boy" and asking all sorts of interesting questions for a solid twenty minutes.
 
besada said:
Yeah, this is all pretty much completely wrong. If you live in a poor neighborhood, it doesn't make you not white, nor does it remove the privilege inherent in being white. It doesn't change hundreds of years of history, racial demographics, or socio-political structures of the country.

But don't let me stop you from having hurt feelings. Everyone is welcome to feel what they want.
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So if you are a poor white person living in a predominantly Mexican (for example) neighborhood and you get called gringo and white boy it isn't reasonable to be hurt given the history of the country as a whole and so called white privilege?
 
Fenderputty said:
When you figure it out can you PM me because in confused as fuck lol
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I think there was a thread regarding Guardians of the Galaxy and the title mentioned Thanos was in the movie and people complained about spoilers even though Thanos has been in all the publicity. So someone changed all the threads to have Thanos in the title.

I don't even know who Thanos is...
 
Sothpaw said:
So if you are a poor white person living in a predominantly Mexican (for example) neighborhood and you get called gringo and white boy it isn't reasonable to be hurt given the history of the country as a whole and so called white privilege?
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It certainly didn't bother me. Maybe you're more sensitive. I am, in fact, a white boy. Why would someone calling me one, outside of the historical context of racism, upset me?
 
besada said:
It certainly didn't bother me. Maybe you're more sensitive. I am, in fact, a white boy. Why would someone calling me one, outside of the historical context of racism, upset me?
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If it was used to be threatening or demeaning someone certainly has a right to be upset. Even if it wasn't, as a kid, just being othered like that might be upsetting.
 
I've been called a gringo when visiting Latin America, but that's about it. I'm pretty white.

Not a big deal to me, 'cracker' doesn't have the same negative connotations another racial slur might have. It's more of a descriptor.
 
besada said:
It certainly didn't bother me. Maybe you're more sensitive. I am, in fact, a white boy. Why would someone calling me one, outside of the historical context of racism, upset me?
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I am not a particularly sensitive person. I do get upset by being called gringo and white boy because it is disrespectful. When I was younger I was frightened by the term because there was the real threat of violence. I have been jumped several times and white privilege really didn't help me out there nor did it temper my reaction to the terms.
 
Tamanon said:
It's a slang term for white guy. That's all, it's not a negative connotation to it. There's no negative history associated with using the word to hold people down. Same as gringo, it's just used to identify someone as an outsider, not with ill intent.
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Isn't disrespect ill intent?
 
Tamanon said:
It's a slang term for white guy. That's all, it's not a negative connotation to it. There's no negative history associated with using the word to hold people down. Same as gringo, it's just used to identify someone as an outsider, not with ill intent.
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That's not universally true at all.
 
Tamanon said:
It's a slang term for white guy. That's all, it's not a negative connotation to it. There's no negative history associated with using the word to hold people down. Same as gringo, it's just used to identify someone as an outsider, not with ill intent.
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As a Mexican I can assure you that isn't always the case...
 
Tamanon said:
It's a slang term for white guy. That's all, it's not a negative connotation to it. There's no negative history associated with using the word to hold people down. Same as gringo, it's just used to identify someone as an outsider, not with ill intent.
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That's not necessarily true.

The etymology of the modern term "cracker" is uncertain.[3]

One theory holds that slave foremen in the antebellum South used bullwhips to discipline African slaves, with such use of the whip being described as 'cracking the whip'. The white foremen who cracked these whips thus became known as "crackers".[4][5][6][7]

They are called by the town's-people, "Crackers," from the frequency with which they crack their large whips, as if they derived a peculiar pleasure from the sound"[8]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(pejorative)
 
Sothpaw said:
I am not a particularly sensitive person. I do get upset by being called gringo and white boy because it is disrespectful. When I was younger I was frightened by the term because there was the real threat of violence. I have been jumped several times and white privilege really didn't help me out there nor did it temper my reaction to the terms.
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Yeah, I think this is the important point here. It's going to be somewhat scary if a group of people surrounds you and starts calling you something highlighting how you are different from them. There are some pretty clear implications there.

On the other hand, I don't think there are any particular words that would be worse than others, in that situation.
 
stutte said:
That's not universally true at all.
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The word has no negative impact, the usage of it could easily, but that's not the word's fault. That's the context of it, but it doesn't make something worse.

studyguy said:
As a Mexican I can assure you that isn't always the case...
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Look at it this way. Using the word "gringo" to talk about a foreigner visiting or that you're dealing with, no negative impact. Using it along with threats of violence or other stuff, it's not the word that's negative, it's the context.

The N-word has a specific context when used by white people, because it was a word specifically designed to denigrate black people.
 
CrazyDude said:
For a long time I thought cracker was used because skin color was the same as crackers. Didn't realize until later that it was about the sound of a whip.
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I was the same way lol.

Honestly though I can't think of a single time I've been insulted for being white, at least non-jokingly anyway. Although a lot of that probably has to do with the fact that everywhere I've lived has been predominantly white.
 
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