I Need Some Help With A Definition Of A Word...

[CitizenLeft]

30. I'm a 53-year-old black woman...

...who happens to be pale-skinned. I grew up in the 60's, at a time when it was most unfortunate to be light-skinned in a poor neighborhood where most other children were browner. I was a shy kid, and it never entered my mind that I was any different from the other kids - my beloved mother was brown-skinned, a little browner than Oprah. So every single day, without exception, when I was chased from school to the day care center where my mother would pick me up after work, and was kicked and pinched and shoved and called "yellow cracker" and "where the fuck did you come from?" I thought there was something wrong with me.

It stopped one day when, thoroughly tired of running, I turned on them and told them, yeah, my daddy's WHITE, and he's a COP, and he's going to bring his police dogs and fire hoses and kick ALL of your asses." (my father was black, I got my paleness from him) That, literally, stopped them in their tracks. What does that say about the times? That's what it took to stop it. In 1968. I made double sure they got the message when I took a paring knife to school and told the biggest blabber-mouth kid I knew that I'd use it if they didn't leave me alone. She blabbed alright, but she told the principal. My mother was shocked out of her mind because I'd never told her what had been going on every day. Don't know why I didn't - guess I was embarrassed. My poor mother.

After that, I started defending myself and getting into fights every day to show them... needless to say, I was no longer a shy kid, LOL. Looking back on it, it toughened me tremendously and prepared me for all sorts of misfortune, both intense and insignificant.

So being called a cracker / cracka? Been there. Just like the "n" word, I guess it depends on how you mean to use it.

Oh, and btw, I grew up in Cleveland, so it's not just Florida, or even the south.