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We have called ourselves 'crackers' for years. I was raised in a Cracker house in N. Florida. It's not racist.

Not long ago a a show about the states on the History channel spoke of the “Cracker” term in Florida and where it came from. Its been around forever. Blacks made it racist just like the term “Tar Baby”.

Just because you call yourselves “crackers” doesn’t mean it can’t be a racist slur. Black people call themselves the “n-word” all the time, but that doesn’t mean that I can call them that and get away with it.

Not from a white POV but when viewed from the black aspect it is quite a different story. I taught in inner city high schools for sixteen years before moving to the edge of severe burnout and taking time off now in a wonderful sweet middle school before I ease back into a high school environment.

The blacks called me a "cracker" everytime I asserted my authority in keeping the peace in my classes. Mostly the thugs who thought they ruled both the streets and the corridors of the school. They may have some sway on the street (they've not yet challenged me for my piece of cement) but in my classroom I am KING. It's not a democracy, it's a dictatorship and I am the dictator!

So whenever I had security remove some foaming at the mouth hairball, he'd be screaming at me and calling me cracker.

ONE such time I stopped everything by screaming "WAIT A MINUTE!" I was so loud everybody stopped and stared. Security, the struggling punk, the cheering class, everybody froze and looked at me. I continued:

"I have been hearing this for years and I just have to know: Are we talking RITZ or SALTINES here? 'Cause I really don't like Ritz so much but I really do like Saltines." The kids then started to giggle. One girl spoke up and said: (respectfully) "Sir, it refers to WHIP CRACKER as in the Masssa on the Plantation."

I paused and looked at the class and said: "Okay I can understand how from your point of view that term represents the lowest vilest form of insult. But look at it from the other end. The Massa, that whip cracker, he was still the BOSS, right? So, yeah the era was not a good one for things like human dignity, but consider that such an insult only really stings as an insult if the person it's being attached to agrees. And this whip cracker, he was a boss and IN CHARGE, not the reverse. So before you guys go hurling such epithets around consider whether or not they're actually going to feel the condemnation you mean to attach."

Then I had the punk taken out by security but he was quiet. I think everybody learned something that day. Teachable moment.

Finally someone who understands what ‘cracker’ when used of Floridians really means.