CNN Bravely Debates: "N Word Vs. Cracker: Which Is Worse?"

It's about time the new network got to the bottom of this racism thing.

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Complex Original

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CNN, in a race to take Fox News' title as the most embarrassing news network in the land, hosted a debate last night on the nature of two words. A panel wondered aloud, for all of us to shake our heads at: "N word vs. cracker: which is worse?"

Brookyln rapper El-P offered the following:

That's correct. See, you can write out the word cracker without repercussion because crackers haven't been enslaved and subjugated. The word cracker was not used to systematically dehumanize crackers as part of a larger plan to keep crackers subservient to the majority power in these United States—because, get this, in America crackers have long been the dominant power. Crackers are white people.

In case you're wondering why CNN held this debate last night, it's because during George Zimmerman's trial, a friend of Trayvon Martin's, Rachel Jeantel, testified that on the night Martin was shot and killed Martin called her and said that he was being followed by a "creepy-ass cracker."

Here is an actual sentence from CNN on this moment in her testimony:

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No. No it hasn't. No such fuse has been lit, because the word cracker isn't the same as the word nigger.

Think about how you felt reading that sentence, that word. That word carries terrible weight because it's been integral to hundreds of years of American racism against African-Americans. Equating that word to the word cracker is just stupid.

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