Cracker, the New Gay

If you’re in your twenties you know the utility which the term “gay” is or has been used, from lame to nonsensical to selfish, it can cover so many meanings, it can substitute for almost any adjective desired that has a negative implication. A friend’s whiny complaining, or their argument that makes no sense is “gay”. Whether you think using “gay” like this is right or wrong, it has the effect of making people hyper aware of society’s idea of masculinity and I would also argue, makes you more aware of your heterosexuality and on the flip side, more aware of homosexuality. I find it interesting that as the generation that used this term, we are also probably the most accepting of homosexuals in our history.

As racial anxieties are being stoked for political gain in this country, and pressure mounts on Obama to fulfill the expectations we have about the kind of civil rights figure the first President of African American heritage should be, we are all staring a real chance, maybe the best chance in my lifetime, for real progress in the civil rights movement in the face.

That’s why I’m going to start calling people on being “cracker”.

That’s why I am going to start using and advocating the use of a perjorative term against white people. We can make each other think as a culture about what makes us white(or what makes us good white people?), what do we not like about other white people, we will also start to think as a culture about what is our heritage, what will be our legacy. I believe if we feel we have more control and responsibility over what the values of mainstream white american culture are, and have a tool to label the destructive elements, those that wear down our resolve to fight for others civil rights and fight for our own freedom in a world of historical inequality, maybe we can get to where we can pick up the banner of equality Martin Luther King left 50 years ago.

Watching as Glen Beck and other public figures use coded language (meaning words which carry certain associations and emotional reponses) and misrepresent issues, and people’s statements or positions to create and drum up threats to white or upper class wealth and power in America and direct that energy toward opposition of policies, and people associated with Barack Obama.

If the white people who were protesting Obama’s speech to school kids were to think about how their actions would impact the perception of their race I think they would have acted differently. They missed a real opportunity to discuss, first of all, any issues raised by Obama in the speech AND the fact that this is the first African American president, because they were too afraid he would somehow magically make a hidden case for communism so strong that the kids would …I don’t know where the paranoid delusion goes from there but, they pulled their children out of school and scolded the first African American president for wanting to direct a speech at the nation’s children. Now if they had thought about how that will go down in the history books and makes whites today look racist, whether overt ideas or rhetoric of racism played a part or not, I don’t think it would have happened. Therefore, that is sooo cracker. Or my other favorite phrasing, how f*ckin honkey.