Fashionistas you have arrived 3-25-03 - 10-3-03

[bridge of love]

[quote:
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Originally posted by ThrashersFan
Anyone else have a dramatic life changing book in their lives? [/QUOTE]

Confederacy of Dunces helped me identify certain personality traits I had that needed to be worked on.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Is "white trash" more or less polite than "cracker"? Or do they have crackers in the north? What other terms are there? I would love to learn some new denigrating terms for groups of people I wish to distance myself from because those groups include relatives.

I think Jeff Foxworthy has established that "redneck" is the acceptable and polite form for what you are trying to convey. "White trash" is bad, "cracker" seems to be worse, and asking "is that your wife, or your sister . . . or both?" is right out.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by bilmore
I think Jeff Foxworthy has established that "redneck" is the acceptable and polite form for what you are trying to convey. "White trash" is bad, "cracker" seems to be worse, and asking "is that your wife, or your sister . . . or both?" is right out.

There seems to be a woeful lack of names here. Interesting.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by MisterEbola
:die: :hide: :bang:

It's been almost ten minutes and you still haven't hit me.

Ha.

[MisterEbola]

Originally posted by bilmore
I think Jeff Foxworthy has established that "redneck" is the acceptable and polite form for what you are trying to convey. "White trash" is bad, "cracker" seems to be worse, and asking "is that your wife, or your sister . . . or both?" is right out.

Not to be confused with Texan...

:lurk2:

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Is "white trash" more or less polite than "cracker"? Or do they have crackers in the north? What other terms are there? I would love to learn some new denigrating terms for groups of people I wish to distance myself from because those groups include relatives.

To my ear, Cracker has racist overtones that white trash doesn't. Hence, white trash is found indigenously everywhere, while crackers are a subset of white trash (also a subset of "redneck," which isn't synonymous with either) which, if found outside of the south, can usually be traced back to a former Jim Crow state.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by bilmore
I have heard about you at parties, and that you don't remember dollar dances seems believable.

The funny thing is, there are so many things you might have heard which would result in that conclusion, and I really have no clue which ones you mean.

BR(I'd worked a really long week that time the Mr. and Slave had to carry me out of the club asleep at 11 pm)C

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by bilmore
I think Jeff Foxworthy has established that "redneck" is the acceptable and polite form for what you are trying to convey. "White trash" is bad, "cracker" seems to be worse, and asking "is that your wife, or your sister . . . or both?" is right out.

Is the mention of Jeff Foxworthy the official jumping of the shark of the FB?

I had a good laugh when he was found in a random closet on "The Family Guy"...

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
To my ear, Cracker has racist overtones that white trash doesn't. Hence, white trash is found indigenously everywhere, while crackers are a subset of white trash (also a subset of "redneck," which isn't synonymous with either) which, if found outside of the south, can usually be traced back to a former Jim Crow state.

Best description I've seen:

"In his poem, West refers to himself and White southerners as "crackers." The term is generally of a derogatory nature, and seems to be resident to the South. Despite its negative connotations, it is sometimes seen as a term of endearment, especially among White Georgians, although many Southern whites do not use nor do they approve of the term. "Cracker" has specific ethnic connotations, directed towards White Southerners, and more frequently, poor ones. Of its peculiar dual nature, Irving Allen writes, "'Cracker' is a positive or at least a humorous self-label for many Georgians. But in and beyond Georgia it was and remains a class epithet, and is more recently a black term for any white, Southerner or Northerner, who is thought to be a racist" (59). Peculiarly, in the book Black Jargon in White America by David Claerbaut, the latter, more negative racist definition of cracker is listed first (Claerbaut 61).

The origins of the term are uncertain, though there are a few conjectures. Dave Wilton, who studies etymology as a hobby, presents the idea that the term may have come from the word corncracker, which describes someone who cracks corn for liquor, a common practice especially in early Appalachia. Wilton writes, "The song lyric 'Jimmy Crack Corn' is a reference to this. In the song, a slave sings about how his master got drunk, fell, hit his head, and died. And the slave 'don't care.' (This was a pretty subversive song for its day.) This usage, however, is probably not the origin of the ethnic term cracker" (Wilton, par. 1). Wilton also suggests that the term may have come from 16th century Old English, where "to crack" meant to boast. There isn't much to reinforce this belief, however.

Going along with the cracked corn theory, Delma Presley, a noted scholar, believes that "cracker" came from as far back as the 18th Century, where cracked corn was actually consumed by the Scots-Irish (Allen 50). As those settlers came to Appalachia, the practice of cracking corn to produce liquor became popular, and the term thus followed them. Then, while the Scots-Irish and several other ethnic groups populated Appalachia, cracker was applied to all of the white inhabitants.

Clarence Major, in his Dictionary of Afro-American Slang, lists two rather interesting ideas about the origin of the term. The first is that a "cracker" was a slang term used by 19th Century Georgian slaves to refer to the slavemasters. If this were in fact, true, then the term would come directly from the cracking of the slavemaster's whip. This is quite a peculiar theory, because it would immediately explain the negative connotation that the word has taken. However, there seems to be little or no support for this theory, and no other source that was studied mentions it.

The other theory Major suggests is that, in light of the extreme racial tension of the 19th Century, "cracker" came straight from "the white soda cracker as opposed to say, ginger cookies" (Major 42). Again, this would explain where the derogatory undertones could originate. But as with Major's first explanation, there seems to be no reinforcement for this, and this was the only source that made any mention of such an origin. The former of Major's etymologies does seem to somewhat hint back to the popular cracked corn theory, but it is the only theory investigated that gave such an assertion. Major's definition of cracker is simple: "a white person" (Allen 42). One particular thing to note is that Major's Dictionary was published in 1970, towards the end of the civil rights era, which, along with years of Reconstruction, mark arguably the two most tense ages with concern to relations between Blacks and Whites.

Why Georgia is listed so many times as an assumed origin for "cracker" is not known.

As one can see, there are many possible origins for cracker, and no one seems to have a definitive idea as to where it exactly received its current meaning. As stated before, despite the fact that it was once and still is used as an insult, white Southerners, to however small an extent, have embraced the term, and use it even jokingly among themselves, much like nigger, chink, spic, and redneck have been inverted. As another example of this, Irving Allen tells us that "the term redneck was... applied to any working-class Southerner in the genteel view" (Allen 58). George Wallace and Jeff Foxworthy are two people who were instrumental in this reversal of redneck's connotations."

[ABBAKiss]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
To my ear, Cracker has racist overtones that white trash doesn't.

Why is it "white" trash then? I always assumed white trash was racist becuase it tacitly implies that white people, unlike other races, are not typically trash.

[MisterEbola]

Originally posted by bilmore
Best description I've seen:

"In his poem, West refers to himself and White southerners as "crackers." The term is generally of a derogatory nature, and seems to be resident to the South. Despite its negative "

TMI.

I will just defer to Chef's reference to Stan and Kyle as "my little crackers".

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
To my ear, Cracker has racist overtones that white trash doesn't. Hence, white trash is found indigenously everywhere, while crackers are a subset of white trash (also a subset of "redneck," which isn't synonymous with either) which, if found outside of the south, can usually be traced back to a former Jim Crow state.

Concur. IMHO, I think "Cracker" is also one of those terms being lost to the fog of history, as those generations who actually used it in spoken conversation die off. Good riddance.

"Redneck" is certainly a superset of the above, but then again it's become a superset of everything these days. Once a title firmly held in the grubby hands of the unwashed Southern masses, the Jeff Foxworthys of the world have genericized it such that it means little more than the absence of good manners or upbringing, and now it connotes no more character than that of a fast-food chain.

[greatwhitenorthchick]

Originally posted by ABBAKiss
Why is it "white" trash then? I always assumed white trash was racist becuase it tacitly implies that white people, unlike other races, are not typically trash.

That's what I thought as well.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
The funny thing is, there are so many things you might have heard which would result in that conclusion, and I really have no clue which ones you mean.

It occurs to me that someone could have taken what I typed seriously, and so I hasten to add (can you use the word "hasten" when you are fifteen posts late? Sort of like "to make a long story short", it seems to be just . . . wrong) that I was kidding.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
To my ear, Cracker has racist overtones that white trash doesn't. Hence, white trash is found indigenously everywhere, while crackers are a subset of white trash (also a subset of "redneck," which isn't synonymous with either) which, if found outside of the south, can usually be traced back to a former Jim Crow state.

Wow, and to think it was just by chance that I asked if they have crackers in the north and then it goes and turns out that it's a southern thing. Us uns learns sumptin new ever day.