No Soul

[00:00] All right Coalson it is time for another under Google we do under Google rules. That was the play of super excited
[00:19] told us we had to
[00:23] We signed up for it in the end it's gonna be better and more true than Google can give you let me help you this week
[00:34] so I was recently on a trip to the Florida Keys and
[00:39] And I was talking to a local and he was explaining to me about
[00:46] cracker cows
[00:49] Okay, I don't know if you've heard of cracker cows. I hadn't heard of cracker cows. I know all those words, right?
[00:55] But apparently it is far as this so I haven't googled this and this is why I'm talking to my my you know
[01:01] two of my my smartest friends
[01:03] He said that cracker cows were
[01:06] specifically brought over from Spain and they're like scrawny or in shorter or weaker or whatever
[01:14] And that it became like a swamp cow that like the keys were able to like take care of
[01:23] Right like they they were you know, we're like southern Florida and like the keys
[01:28] there's this smaller weaker crummy cow called the cracker cow from Spain and
[01:33] But here's this this is the part of the under Google
[01:38] this local speculated or or or told me that the phrase cracker as
[01:46] a slur for white people came from
[01:50] the fact that
[01:52] poor
[01:53] Floridians were taking care of cracker cows
[01:59] And so I would like to first of all, I didn't believe him
[02:04] But I maybe maybe he's right
[02:07] So I guess I kind of want to talk about
[02:10] cracker cows
[02:11] Whether any of the any of the things that he said to me are true
[02:15] Also, if we don't believe this is true what the origin of cracker as a slur for white people is
[02:22] I think all that's very interesting
[02:24] Yeah
[02:26] I've never heard of a cracker cow. No, I've never heard of a cat a swamp cow
[02:32] It sounds completely oxymoronic cows eat grasses and
[02:40] and
[02:41] Whatnot did you see these cows and those things right? So so so here's the deal
[02:49] So the reason keys are keys is they're not islands right there. There are these these
[02:54] Is basically a coral island that's okay. So yeah
[02:59] So the what I learned was that there are these groves right these mangroves that sort of
[03:06] Collect earth and dirt and build up
[03:09] This way, right? So it's basically like there's this this plant like plant life underneath all of the things that exist
[03:18] Yeah, and it's different than you know, and there's coral all around it, of course
[03:22] But like but it's different than an island
[03:26] And so rock yes, and this is just like silt and earth and dirt over mangrove plants essentially
[03:34] and
[03:36] And that those things can be very grassy and and and feed animals now
[03:41] The problem is is that it's hard to get them between islands
[03:46] And that that what I learned is that there was a guy and oh
[03:51] Somebody's folly
[03:52] Somebody started with an F, but he built a
[03:56] train track all the way down from all of the
[03:59] From one end of the keys to the other and it was a huge
[04:04] Money suck and and ultimately a failure
[04:08] But basically you've got a bunch of like redneck
[04:12] Floridians living on these islands and they start growing these
[04:17] Small weekly cows like sickly cows now
[04:21] There's also small deers on on Deer Island out there. They're like they're like pygmy cows. They're like I
[04:30] Don't know like the size of a dog
[04:32] Which is pretty cool. So like there's a bunch of weird stuff out there and they can live off these islands
[04:38] Because there's grass
[04:40] There's no sand like it's it's like swampy. It's like there's a bunch of
[04:44] There's no sand it's all like earth and in swamp and grass
[04:49] Sure. Yeah, so cows can definitely live on it
[04:53] so I
[04:56] Think that so in the ideas that they they raise these cows
[05:01] Right cuz they were chakra cows they were cheap to buy and cheap to like, you know care
[05:06] Then you could sell the meat and that I guess so they got yeah milk
[05:11] And it was they no, no, I don't think it was a milk milk thing
[05:13] I don't think it was a milk cow. I think it was like a meat cow
[05:16] I think it was more like like like if you were selling shitty beef
[05:20] you're so the
[05:25] where this falls apart to me then is that the I mean if people were raising them as a
[05:32] Crop animal if you will or whatever that's not the right term, but
[05:37] Stock as livestock animal, right? They need more space than these little islands
[05:41] Well, you'd need more space and then you'd also want to be closer to a market like
[05:46] Your way the F out right keys. Like how do you get your your product? No, but I think that's the whole idea
[05:52] I think it's basically not a really much of a money-making
[05:57] Thing I think it's it definitely won't be right. It's poor white people having a few cows and
[06:04] They were called cracker cows and that's how you get crackers
[06:07] I think is the was was what I was told right? So basically it's the super poor. They're not making a bunch of money off of it
[06:14] And it's just this it's a terrible plan
[06:17] But they're cracker cows from how that would be
[06:23] Potentially a thing that could happen and
[06:26] That it would definitely mutate into a derogatory term for
[06:31] Right for poor red neck, right? Right, right, right. So that's why I thought hey, maybe this is true
[06:36] But I thought maybe this this this can't be true. I got to talk to my guys
[06:41] So my thinking on I guess my assumption was always somewhat liberal is that the term cracker
[06:48] Came about in reference to like
[06:52] Salting crackers or something like that. Just like like it's just a bland the blandest hard tack
[07:00] lamest cracker thing you could possibly think of like it's got no soul. It's
[07:06] Okay, so that's how I always envisioned cracker coming about but I have no idea if that's true
[07:11] I I'm sure that I just made that up in like my seven-year-old brain. Well, so I I always thought that
[07:19] Cracker was from the crack of the whip. Oh
[07:23] Okay, and and it was like it was like the southern
[07:27] You
[07:28] Know wasn't necessarily that the guy in the big house, but it was the plantation manager
[07:34] Who cracked and he usually wasn't as wealthy. He was just the paid guy. He was more
[07:40] low-level
[07:41] scum of the earth white guy
[07:43] And he was the cracker. That's where I always assumed that came from
[07:48] He was more and it wasn't respected of our the recent terms
[07:53] We've done on unbeatable or in the Googles that is probably more likely
[07:57] Yeah, but that's what I've always assumed and then you just end up with like the dumb white people from the South are crackers
[08:03] Sure, not the elite white rich ones that owned the house, but it was the dumb guys that crack the whip
[08:11] Hmm Joey, what do you have any? Yeah, I mean, I was kind of thinking more
[08:16] Yeah along the food the food line to like the food cracker
[08:21] But also like there, you know, it's I mean generally there are I guess like the saltines or you know, they're white
[08:29] They're salty. They're dry
[08:32] Salty white dry. I mean I that does you're checking a lot of boxes here. Exactly
[08:38] Bland yes, and I feel like not challenging you but I think you eat them when you're sick
[08:46] What I don't know I got I went over the edge on that one. Yeah, I think so
[08:52] Is it
[08:54] Do you feel like that term came about
[08:57] Is it a more modern term or just go back to I
[09:01] Definitely think it's late time. So in this story the story that I was told right so
[09:07] the
[09:09] Cracker cows would have been around and the you know, whatever 17 1800s which puts us in slave time
[09:19] In huckleberry fin does
[09:23] Is the term cracker used I don't think so because the thing would have been if it were in popular use in like the
[09:33] Post Bellum, you know pre right? No, I'm with you
[09:38] But like the thing is is like we just racial slurs for white people just aren't as offensive and they don't
[09:44] They don't take the same
[09:48] Meaning right like like
[09:51] It doesn't have the same intensity that it would for minorities, right like
[09:57] and not just not just
[09:59] You know black people but you know gay people or nobody says you can't say the C word
[10:05] Exactly. Exactly. They see where he's a different C word, right?
[10:08] So that's the thing like you can say it all day long. And so I feel like it comes out of
[10:13] that sort of
[10:15] That slave time especially during sort of reconstruction and coming and just be like
[10:21] I mean, I'm not saying slaves weren't saying cracker all the time
[10:23] But probably you white people didn't know about the phrase cracker until after slavery
[10:28] Right, like when when it's like screw you guys see all our crackers
[10:32] So I don't have to get you know beat anymore or whatever
[10:36] I
[10:37] Don't know I'm going with
[10:41] 1880s
[10:42] Even though it was probably in the vernacular long before and
[10:47] I'm thinking it's not about the cow. I'm thinking it's about the whip of the of the crummy
[10:55] Redneck slave master
[11:00] Okay, I so I'm I'm on board with that
[11:08] Yeah, I think yeah I'd go with that
[11:11] I'm fine with that. I don't think it's the cow
[11:17] Okay, so it turns out that there was a cow. There is a cow. There's a cracker cow
[11:21] I know that the Florida cracker is one of the oldest breeds of cattle in the United States
[11:26] Okay, descending from Spanish cattle brought to the new world beginning in the early 1500s. So all that stuff. I was told was true
[11:35] This is a Spanish Spanish cow. It was taken to Florida called a cracker cow
[11:42] It looks like it Florida cracker cattle are small
[11:52] acile and easier to manage by humans there there are a dwarf type of Florida crackers called guineas
[12:03] Were regarded as well regarded as milk producers
[12:07] Yeah, it says that they they have milk yield in comparison to other cattle
[12:13] Larger cattle, but are mainly used for meat purposes as they produce good quality meat
[12:19] Hmm, and they have a good longevity
[12:24] Okay, so so shout out cracker cattle cracker cow
[12:30] Florida cracker cattle is what shows up
[12:33] and
[12:35] Wilson is close, but not quite right. It does seem so according to
[12:43] Code switch that's wrong. Yeah. Oh, I trust them for sure
[12:49] Cracker
[12:53] Was used to refer to poor whites particularly those inhabiting the frontier regions of Maryland, Virginia and Georgia
[13:01] It is suspected that it was a shortened version of whip cracker
[13:05] Since the manual labor they did involve driving livestock with a whip not to mention other brutal arenas where those skills were employed
[13:17] Over the course of time it came to represent a person of lower cast or criminal disposition and that is from oh
[13:28] Oh, but below that well, okay, so are you so what I'm seeing is that it's for
[13:35] whip crackers of
[13:37] Cattle not of slaves, right? So if you go below that
[13:42] It says all the way back to
[13:46] Shakespeare Shakespeare's age at least the age of Shakespeare
[13:52] King John in the 1590s
[13:58] One of the character refers to another as a CRA K ER. It's a common insult for obnoxious and below viator
[14:05] Just think of somebody who is loud and rambunctious talks too much
[14:14] But yeah, and so saying that the that trait was used to describe a group of
[14:20] Celtic immigrants and
[14:23] to the New World and
[14:26] It seems like that may have stuck with them there
[14:31] The governor of Florida said we don't know what to do with these crackers
[14:35] We tell them to settle this area and they don't we tell them not to settle and they do
[14:40] They lived off the land that they were rogues don't like that
[14:45] But then those immigrants to the south
[14:49] In the early 1800s started to refer to themselves that way. It's a badge of honor and a term of endearment
[14:55] So the person that I met at this bar was actually probably not that far off it potentially is the
[15:03] It didn't come from the cracker cow. It came from the whip of the crack but or the crack of the whip
[15:09] But it also is the crack of the whip of livestock
[15:13] Right in the south of poor white people. So like on some level you can see how it gets all mixed up
[15:20] Well at the end of this article too, they they say in the 1940s
[15:24] The term started to take another meaning in American inner cities in particular
[15:29] as an epithet for bigoted white folks
[15:34] So and this sounds like it was from when the people were moving from the south to the north
[15:40] and
[15:42] So in that sense is a more specific
[15:46] Slur that seems like it's more recent. Sure if you're
[15:50] If you're bigoted white, you're gonna be called a cracker, right and that seems
[15:56] newer like specifically
[15:58] But it comes from the south specifically, right?
[16:02] But like the the meaning has altered some right and it's got this newer version more negative. Yeah
[16:11] Although it sounds like people are always dumb and redneck
[16:20] Of course
[16:21] Well, so so where are we going with we going with that? I was told something that was sort of right
[16:28] Not a complete lie
[16:30] Didn't have the whole story
[16:33] Yeah, it's a you didn't they didn't have the whole story right cuz they had cracker cows and they thought they had changed
[16:38] they thought they'd found the
[16:41] The answer to the cracker story, but it's kind of similar
[16:46] It is a similar story
[16:48] It is but there was another cracker sort of story in that
[16:54] Code switch thing that was like, yeah, basically
[16:57] you know people may have attributed it to
[17:01] The cracking of the whip that drove slaves, but that wouldn't have been the case actually like of actual crackers or whatever
[17:08] So you can see that look in a local area that they made their their own story themselves or whatever. Sure
[17:16] Cracker cows, that's where the term cracker comes from right whereas opposed the crack of the whip on livestock or on slaves
[17:23] Which is unfortunately far too similar
[17:25] Gets all mixed up, too
[17:27] Yeah
[17:30] well
[17:32] Yeah, well good. I'm you know, it's always as these things go. They're slightly grim, but we learned some stuff
[17:40] Yeah, yeah
[17:44] so I don't know to say it was a
[17:49] No, we're not with us expect this is not the kind of question. I was expecting you thought it was gonna be saltines did not
[17:56] these end with like just
[17:58] Whips just whips and a lot of whips a lot of whippies
[18:03] It's I guess you know what though it's like as as a as a weapon goes it is
[18:09] I mean, it is not technologically advanced. It's not expensive
[18:12] I mean and they can be used to inflict a lot of harm. So it's really not pleasant. Yeah
[18:19] So and apparently you don't need to be rich or well trained to to use it. So
[18:26] Boo boo on that
[18:28] But shout out Indiana Jones
[18:32] Sure