Columbia prof defends Trayvon calling Zimmerman a ‘cracker’
A Columbia linguistics professor shows how following “tolerance” and “diversity” guidelines pose a severe hazard to logic, reason, and civility.
It may have made sense for Trayvon Martin to call George Zimmerman a “cracker” a professor from Columbia University said last Thursday, speaking on MSNBC’s “All in with Chris Hayes.”
Linguistics Professor John McWhorter appeared on the cable news program to defend Rachel Jeantel, the star prosecution witness in the Zimmerman trial, for her use of Black English.
McWhorter said that Jeantel was “articulate, just in a different kind of English than mainstream English.”
He then defended Martin’s use of the word “cracker” to describe Zimmerman, because, according to McWhorter, “given how the Trayvon Martin case went, there would seem to be some cause for some preliminary racial grievance for the poor boy, to have had somebody chasing after him for a reason he didn’t know.”
“Of course he might refer to the person as a cracker because he’s a human being,” added McWhorter, who is black. “I think we can understand that cracker may have been an appropriate term at the time.”
McWhorter told Campus Reform in an email on Monday that although he has “heard from some whites appalled” at his comments, he stands behind them.
“It’s an issue of power, and privacy,” he wrote. “Martin used the word in a conversation with his friend, not on television, and he was speaking as a member of a troubled minority group. CRACKER is a term of self-defense from below; the N-word is a slur from above.”
He said that any backlash is the result of people simply not understanding race issues.
“Anybody who pretends to think Trayvon Martin saying CRACKER and Paula Deen saying NIGGER are the same thing is being fake — and also doesn’t understand how important and loaded the relationship is between young black men and law enforcement / profiling,” he wrote.
“Although,” he clarified, “I argued last week that we need to ease up on Deen too.”
Columbia University did not respond to requests for comment.
Columbia prof defends Trayvon calling Zimmerman a ‘cracker’ (Campus Reform)
Comments
This is why the white southerners referred to blacks as N….s. They were a minority that had been victimized by Northern aggression having their society and many of their brothers killed in war. That was how they referred to blacks in their language, taught to them by their parents, grand parents and great grand parents.
Good think that no one walks down the street looking at other people they might be murdered if that person is afraid.
Second look at Paula Deen!
Isn’t what Dee-Dee says was spoken while she was on the phone considered “hearsay?” Is there a recording of this call?
Creepy-Ass-Cracker is new to the vernacular I know. But, per Dee-Dee this is a common term for white people. And, no, she said, only Blacks can take inference from racial remarks.
I do believe that Don West can depose Ben Crump either today, or tomorrow? My guess is that O’Mara and West went over Judge Nelson’s head to get a reversal on one of her “motions?”
I hope we don’t go chasing down the rabbit hole of racial animosity. Why bother? Not that Crump shouldn’t fear a depo done by Don West. But Zimmerman’s not a racist!
As to politiicans, why are Hispanics thought to be an easy target to insult? Also, is there an equivalent to this in Spanish?
If you want to hear some real racism, listen to Mexicans talk about Hondurans or Guatamalans.
The grand-daddy racist organization of them all? La Raza. Translated into English: The Race. Gee, I wonder.
RE: PAULA DEEN
I went to Amazon to order her next book, which was due out in October. But, then, Amazon informed me Ballentine Books backed away as her publisher. By the point her book, at Amazon, was #1.
If anyone has a lawsuit it would be Paula. Does she just go to find another publisher? Does she look into “self-publishing?” The major work on her book is done!
If it’s appropriate to have Martin and McWhorter call Zimmerman a cracker, then it’s appropriate for me to refer to Martin and McWhorter as porch monkeys. You can’t have it both ways!