Talk:Cracker (term)/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

RfC: Lead sentence and short description

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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How should the term be defined in the lead sentence and short description?

Cracker is a(n) ...

• Option 1: sound ...
• Option 2: insult ...
• Option 3: term ...
• Option 4: racial epithet ...
• Option 5: racial slur ...

These were selected as the options because these were these were the most common variations of the lead within the past year.  Bait30  ^{Talk 2 me pls?} 21:45, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Speaking from a Florida-centric viewpoint, only "term" makes any sense at all, as it is our denonym. I recognize that, however unfortunately as it may be, Florida is not the whole world. Jacona (talk) 23:59, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - per scholarly sources definition of cracker; (UPDATED October 8, see comment below)12:04, 8 October 2020 (UTC) Slurs such as...cracker...are linguistic expressions that are primarily used and understood to derogate certain group members on the basis of their descriptive attributes (such as their race or sex), the racial slur cracker, popular white slurs, especially honky and cracker, have historically been reserved for segments of the white population, White racial slur (“cracker”). Isaidnoway (talk) 10:09, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

As a Georgia Cracker living in a Florida city with a "Cracker Dinner" each year, I don't see it as a pejorative, even if some people use it as a sneer. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 05:51, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't see it as a pejorative either, and I'm generally not insulted by many of the LGBT-related slurs either, but we both know that reliable sources define our content in articles. Isaidnoway (talk) 07:12, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@Isaidnoway: I don't find Croom's arguments compelling. Croom justifies calling "cracker" a slur based upon CNN coverage of the Trayvon Martin trial. The articles don't make mention of its history prior to 2013 and simply call it a slur without analysis. By comparison, Anna Bax's 2018 article in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology specifically calls out that reporting as part of the modern transformation of "cracker" into a slur in order to further a social phenomenon of white victimhood and reverse racism. Bax points out that the earliest uses of "cracker" don't even mention whiteness; she notes that the OED first identifies the term used in 1509 to refer to "a boaster, a braggart". She specifically says "Despite this relatively new interpretation of cracker as an offensive anti‐white slur, the media's linguistic behavior seldom treats it as such." and we can all easily verify that contrary to Croom's claims, "cracker" is not treated similarly to any other uncontroversial slur. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:23, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: Given the options, I chose 5 because that's the way I've always thought of it being used. And long before Zimmerman's trial, and Croom, sources described cracker as a racial slur, and still do to this day. However, I do recognize there is history and other context/descriptors behind the meaning of the word as well. So, in light of your comment and other comments made here, I think this RfC is too rigid in the way the options are presented, as if there is just one option to be picked. I would support something along the lines of cracker is a term (since that word is in the title) that can be used as an insult, racial epithet and also be used affectionately. All those options can be sourced, and the term is not restricted to one definition over another. Isaidnoway (talk) 16:58, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

@Isaidnoway: I really like that proposed wording! — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:20, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment NPR refers to the term as a slur. If that helps... ~ HAL333 16:55, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4: "racial epithet" sounds a lot more encyclopedic, as a word that defines, and is neutral. With the way public comedy goes, I've seen white persons liberally using this term in a joking manner. Once upon a time, "redneck" was an insult, until Jeff Foxworthy based his own comedy act around the term. Let's use a neutral term for this. — Maile (talk) 22:28, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, 3, or 4 the history of the term is highly varied and older than racial dynamics in the United states, so I specifically oppose "slur" per WP:RECENTISM as "slur" inaccurately represents the history of the term prior to the 1900s. For long periods of time the word was in fact not racialized, or at least not along lines intuitive to readers at first glance. Shakespeare used it in 1590 in King James, and in the 1600s it was an epithet used by the Anglo(-Americans) against the Scots-Irish. It was reclaimed by that group in the 1800s who referred to themselves as "crackers". Its history as a racial epithet in the modern sense dates to 1940, but even despite this contemporary controversy large numbers of Southern, white Americans still self-identify as crackers which is exemplified by comments in this thread. All this information comes from the NPR article posted by HAL333 which interviews anthropologist Dana Ste. Claire who wrote the book Cracker: the cracker culture in Florida history. I have a weak preference for option 3, but with a mention of its contemporary use as an insult. (Brought from a note on WT:LING) — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:02, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

  In addition to the Anna Bax article I mentioned above, I also want to point out the 2016 work of John Rickford and Sharese King which won the "Best Paper in Language" award from the Linguistic Society of America. That paper looked at the 2013 George Zimmerman trial where the term "cracker" figured prominently. Rickford and King point to a number of resources. They provide quotes from a juror in that trial; when asked by Anderson Cooper whether they considered "creepy-ass cracker"--allegedly said by Martin--"a racial statement", the juror said no: "I don’t think it’s really racial." In Black talk (Smitherman 2000), "cracker" is defined as "a derogatory term for a white person". The Dictionary of American Regional English provides two definitions for "cracker": "i. A backwoodsman, rustic, countrified person; a poor White person. chiefly South Atlantic; ii. By extension, A White racist, among Black speakers, derogatory." suggesting that lexicographers view the term not as a racial slur against white people, but as an insult directed at white racists specifically, which is in line with Rickford and King (2016) and Bax (2018) which note a specific, restricted meaning different from the recent expansion to all white people. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:49, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

• Is this a legit article? per WP:NOTDICTIONARY. If there is nothing beyond the word, its etymology and its usage, then, racial slur or not, this belongs to the Wiktionary. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 18:55, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
• 2, 3, or 4 per Wugapodes. Scholarly linguistic sources are going to be stronger than news for this thing and recentism must be avoided. (t · c) buidhe 06:25, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
• Some combination of all - Per Isaidnoway and others, it's clear that this term is used in many different contexts where it is both positive and negative. Labeling it merely as a "term" could work but may run afoul of WP:NPOV due to making the term seem more neutral than it really is. Thus I support some sort of elaboration noting that the term can be both positive and negative. Transcendence (talk) 19:37, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 or 5 My understanding is that it comes from "soda cracker," something that is white.Truth is King^TALK 14:39, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Mistitled

This article is wrongly titled. Cracker (term) is a kind of biscuit. Cracker (slang) refers to a thing that's awesome ("That's a cracker!") or a person who is extremely attractive ("She's a cracker!"). After a lifetime of speaking English as my native tongue, I've just learned that it's also yet another of the words that our American friends have managed to make racially charged, but there's no way that that's the primary meaning of the term. This content should be moved to "Cracker (US slang)".—S Marshall T/C 12:15, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

@S Marshall: It's not slang, though, any more than Mancunian or Liverpudlian are slang. The term does have some uses that could possibly be classified as slang, such as the specific inplication "White racist", but this is neither the original nor dominant sense. Your overall point, however, is correct about "Cracker (term)". This should be moved to "Cracker (epithet)" (which would also cover the slang usages, since they also happen to be epithets), but I'll let someone else do it, such as you. :-) PS: The RfC result above is factually incorrect on one thing: This is not [only] a "racial" epithet. Whites from Georgia or Florida are not a "race", but are a regional ethnic group, and races are also ethnic groups, so this should be rewritten to use "ethnic" not "racial".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:47, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

If anyone objects to the proposed re-titling, please say so now (in which case I will begin a Move Request). If there are no objections then I'll just boldly move it.—S Marshall T/C 09:23, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Marshall, Since there are at least a half billion other people in the same boat, not sure how much expertise you can claim based upon "a lifetime of speaking English as my native tongue".

Semi-protected edit request on 22 August 2021

Change from racial epithet to racial slur 136.32.227.50 (talk) 17:08, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:53, 22 August 2021 (UTC)