Dan I'm glad you brought this up so I can take the chance to
highlight a
difference.
There is a difference between pointing out flaws in someone's
argument, and pointing out a flaw in their person.
Check my post. I
said Keady's plan was Cracker; I didn't say he
was a Cracker. Identifying
his idea as Cracker is no different than
identifying it as good or bad,
right or left, correct or incorrect,
christian or heathen, etc. Calling it
Cracker is to take a certain
measure of it no differently than those other
measurements.
For the record, I do maintain that a response to a teenager
in a
Black community getting shot in the face, that Basketball is the
missing piece of the puzzle, is very "Cracker." I'm arguing against
the
idea, not the person bringing it. I would call the idea Cracker
if a Black
person had brought it up. It is Cracker.
The difference in Mario's posts
is he never deconstructs the
argument or idea, he tries to deconstruct the
person. Consider
these from him (only since yesterday!):
...You have
a penchant for…
…compensate for incompetence or
ignorance...
…didn't seem to remember their courses in documentation and
ethics...
...Tommy, Poster
Boy…
…intellectual…flabbiness...
…cagey
lawyer…
…Physician, heal thyself. And reverends, pray for more self
knowledge…
…you just don't understand complex thought or
nuance…
See the difference? His posts don't attempt to point out a defect
in
the person's argument, they attempt to point out a defect in the
person.
I'm pretty sure the complaints I saw on this board were about
that
sort of thing. I'm going to do my best to respect those who
complained and not do it. Whether others do or don't remains to be
seen.
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED]ups.com,
"dfsavgny" <[EMAIL PROTECTED].> wrote:
>
> I'll put it in
language you can understand Tom, something that I
> know you and I are
sensitive to. How would you like it if someone
on
> this forum called
you a GINNIE, a WOP, or how about a mafia lawyer?
>
>
Cracker
>
> Historically the word suggested poor, white rural
Americans with
> little formal education. Historians point out the term
originally
> referred to the strong Scots-Irish of the backcountry (as
opposed
to
> the English of the seacoast). Thus a sociologist
reported in
> 1926, "As the plantations expanded these freed men
(formerly bond
> servants) were pushed further and further back upon the
more and
> more sterile soil. They became 'pinelanders,'
'corn-crackers,'
> or 'crackers.'" [Kephard Highlanders] Frederick
Law Olmsted, a
> prominent landscape architect from the northern United
States,
> visited the South as a journalist in the 1850s and noted that
some
> crackers "owned a good many negroes, and were by no means so poor
as
> their appearance indicated."
>
> In the African
American community, "cracker" is a disparaging term
> for whites. (The
OED cites the 1830s origin of white trash as a
word
> used by slaves
on rich plantations to ridicule poor whites.)
>
> Since 1900
"cracker" has become a proud or jocular self-
description.
> With the
huge influx of new residents from the North, "cracker" is
> now used
informally by some white residents of Florida and Georgia
> ("Florida
cracker" or "Georgia cracker") to indicate that their
> family has lived
there for many generations.
>
> However, the term "white cracker"
is not always used self-
> referentially and remains a disparaging term to
many in the
region
>
