How did the word "cracker" become a label for white people?

Question

Thanks alot!

Answer 1

White people actually use to call themselves "Cracker" in the South during the time of slavery and they were proud of it. It refers to "corn-crackers" which were usually poor whites but then it came to mean all whites of the South and it only became derogatory recently when non-whites flipped the script and started using it against whites. But whites still use it today too.

Answer 2

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.'" [Kephard Highlanders] 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." [McWhiney xvi]

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.

However, the term "white cracker" is not always used self-referentially and remains a disparaging term to many in the region

Answer 3

All these people are way off man, WHite people were called Crackers becasue they use to crack that whip on slaves backs. Thats were the term came from.

Answer 4

I don't know.. But I would like to know!! Good Question

Answer 5

how did the word ****** become a word for black people?

Answer 6

YOU ALL BE WRONGZ MKAY, ITS SAID CRACKA TODAY, CATCH UP ON YALLZ EBONICS! HOLLA

Answer 7

it is?