The words "honkie" and "cracker" don't have the same connotation as "nigger." They just don't. I don't find either name offensive, actually -- because I wasn't asked to sit in the back of the bus or sleep in a different hotel or drink out of a separate fountain or use a different restroom or step off the sidewalk when a white went by or risk getting killed if I whistled at a black woman or made to serve my master morning 'til night.
Very different circumstances.
Is it really different Maggie? Playing Devil's Advocate here. Up into the 1960's/70's you consistently heard whites utilizing the "N" word to reference any/all blacks, regardless of their background. This is how the word came to reference such strong negative connotations. Somewhere along the line, blacks began to refer to themselves by the very same word and as the civil rights movement progressed they developed new words to refer to whites.
While you may have never been enslaved or made to sit in the back of a bus or had to step aside to allow a black to pass, as they did for us. Please bear in mind that these words were all developed to refer to another race in a negative manner. They are meant to incite anger out of those they are direct towards. If I, as a white man, were to walk into the back streets of Harlem (I've actually been there) and yell the "N" word it is unlikely that I would make it out "safely". There is strong suggestion that I would be severely injured if not killed. I would be 100% guilty of utilizing speech to drive people to action in a manner that goes above and beyond civil unrest. The very test that determines whether speech should be censored or not and was put down as the test in Terminillo vs. Chicago (US Supreme Court, you can look up the year and all of that.) This means I'd be guilty of inciting a riot and subject to prosecution, not those who attacked.
However, if a black individual were to come into my neighborhood and begin to scream the words honkie or cracker or another derogatory term and the whites were driven to anger we would more than likely be seen as comitting a hate crime against the black or incited us as the majority of jurisdictions do not view those words as being inflammatory even though they have pretty much the same meaning.
This is highly evident in movies & TV where you see blacks referring to one another with the "N" word and whites in a manner that depicts a negative connotation, while knowing full well that they would be in any group that attacked a white for doing exactly the same thing. Is it a double standard? Yes, it is in my mind.
Let's move this a little further though, to maybe bring it home a little better. Have you ever seen a caucasian child grow up in a majority minority area, to be the only caucasian? This child is subjected daily to the attacks from the minority children utilizing the very words that we laugh at. These child who will taunt the caucasian are never charged with a hate crime, they are only told to knock it off at best. However, let that little caucasian child slip one time and utilize the "N" word or call a Mexican child a "spic" or an Arab child a "towel head" and they will immediately be reprimanded for racism and potentially utilizing hate language.
We bust our behinds to teach caucasian children to not utilize these words and that everyone is created equal, yet the minorities that we have fought so hard to protect are the very ones that find humor in slamming the caucasian race.
Remember, racism knows no race when it victimizes.
