Cracker Jack: Offensive? Racist?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Most people have heard of Cracker Jack®. It’s sort of like caramel corn, it comes in a box with a prize, and it was immortalized in “Take me out to the Ballgame”. But why does it have that name? The food is vaguely cracker-like, sharing more similarities with crackers than Grape Nuts® shares with either grapes or nuts. Apparently, crackerjack was a late 19th century slang expression meaning “great” or something along those lines. There’s also an apocryphal story of someone tasting the first batch and exclaiming something along the lines of “That’s a Cracker Jack” (whatever that means).

So, is the name explained? Can we leave it at that? We could, if not for one little detail. Cracker Jack has a mascot. A little boy named Sailor Jack (and his dog Bingo). The little white boy is Sailor Jack. He is the mascot for Cracker Jack. “Cracker” is a derogatory term for white people. I find it difficult not to conclude that the little white boy is Cracker Jack.

Why has there been no outcry about this? Is it because the makers of Cracker Jack initially had no ill intentions? But that is not enough - the Cleveland Indians were named to honor Louis Sockalexis, a Native American who played for a previous Cleveland team, but that has not prevented an outcry about the team’s name and logo, a bright red caricature of a Native American known as Chief Wahoo. Cracker Jack sells itself based on the image of a pale little boy in a blue sailor suit known as Sailor Jack. Is this not offensive? Is it overlooked merely because he is caucasian? Why is this allowed to go on without comment?

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Tsk… we have to shoot newbies that come up LAME!

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Probably because “Cracker” in this instance doesn’t refer to the boy’s race.

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Because it’s a non-issue. I (a white male) am not offended by it because I don’t feel for one moment that anyone who calls some caramel popcorn “Cracker Jack” means anything at all derogatory toward me or anyone else. Personally, I’d never even noticed that they had a logo, much less that it was a little white kid.

And I’ve heard the expression “so-and-so is a crackerjack salesman” used - recently - to mean the person was really good at his job in sales.

There’s plenty in this world to be outraged about without fretting about an utterly harmless box of candy and cheap, fake tattoos.

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And what about that Coppertone girl, eh? EH!?

I, for one, am outraged, and plan to cut my Cracker Jack consumption in protest.

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From their website - unless you think they’re lying there?

And from Merriam-Webster:[ul]Main Entry: crack·er·jack
Pronunciation: 'kra-k&r-"jak
Variant(s): also crack·a·jack /-k&-"jak/
Function: noun
Etymology: probably alteration of crack + jack (man)
Date: 1895
: a person or thing of marked excellence[/ul]

Does that answer your question?

7

And how 'bout horse racing’s “Breeder’s Cup”?

A clear sign of heterophobia in the racing world!

8

hmm but what about redskins?
are they not offensive to american indians :confused:

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Angel food cake = white
Devil’s food cake = black
Coincidence?

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[Nat X]
“How come the nasty black coal turns into a pretty white diamond?”
[/Nat X]

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While it is etymologically interesting that the derogatory word cracker and the encomium of high praise crackerjack are probably linked to the late medieval/early Renaissance meaning of a verb “to brag,” the two words are not directly connected.

The Word Detective on Crackerjack

(Note, for example, that the icon is of a boy in a sailor suit, not the image of a farmer portrayed as uncouth or illiterate.)

Cracker Jack history

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Nat Cole was one of my favorites.

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The only thing offensive about Cracker Jack is the taste.

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I hope this was supposed to be a spoof!! If NOT we gotta draw the line on this PC CRAP somewhere!!

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The team that I followed when I was a kid was the Atlanta Crackers. Although I understand that the word “cracker” is used as a derogatory term, I just can’t take it seriously.

I also got very sick even before we moved to Atlanta. My grandparents took me to a circus and bought me a box of Cracker Jacks and I ate it all in just a few minutes. I will not eat them still today.
[ul]:stuck_out_tongue: [sup]The OP is just looking for trouble and doesn’t seem to have found any.[/sup][/ul]

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I think so. The giveaway:

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My original post was exaggerated. The language was excessively strong. I am not deeply offended by the makers of Cracker Jack®. I am not asking for boycotts (although if anyone seriously wants to, go ahead). I am not looking for trouble, and I do not expect extreme anger, outrage, or protests. I understand that the etymology and history of the brand name “Cracker Jack” derive from “crackerjack” meaning excellent, not “cracker” as a racial slur of whites, especially southerners & rednecks. That much, at least, should have been clear from my original post. And, if anyone cares, I’m a white male.

That being said, I still think there’s an issue here. Here’s one thing I would like to ask of you. Look at the picture that I linked to before. Pretend that you were just picking up a Cracker Jack box for the first time and you were curious about it. Note the prominent features: the words “Cracker Jack” and a picture of a happy white boy in a blue sailor suit. Note that “Cracker Jack” is clearly two separate words: it’s written on two separate lines and the J in Jack is capitalized. It’s not just some word “crackerjack” or “crackajack” from the 1900s. Now look at the label of the picture: “sailor jack & bingo”. They chose as their logo a white boy known as “sailor jack”. Obviously, there is some connection between jack the boy and the “Jack” in the name of the product. There is a certain amount of identification between the two. Perhaps the Jack in Cracker Jack refers to sailor jack. But wait - if Jack is the little white boy, then what does the Cracker in “Cracker Jack” refer to? If we consider the possible meanings of “cracker”, only one usage seems relevant. It is not a pleasant usage. And it is a bit unsettling that it is this easy to interpret a box of candied popcorn & nuts as providing a disparaging description of this white boy, sailor jack = Cracker Jack.

Has anyone noticed this before? Has anyone commented on it? I know that just about every crackpot theory is argued for somewhere on the net, but a search for this turned up empty. I did find two sites that describe Sailor Jack as “goofy”, which could be considered evidence against the view of: “he’s just a happy innocent little kid. How could anyone think negatively of him.”

I’m not saying that there’s any ill intent on anyone’s part - there obviously isn’t. It’s just a bit disturbing that this racial epithet follows so easily and naturally from observation of the box. If my explanation seems a bit long and unnatural, it is because I was trying to make all of the observations, ideas, and connections explicit and clear. This concern is likely to at least cross the mind of someone who looks at the picture and considers “why did they choose this boy ‘sailor jack’ as their logo?” Maybe it would’ve been better if I’d started by posting that question and the link to see how people would respond. It would make an interesting experiment, at least.

Also, I wonder: if a derogatory interpretation relating to some other racial or ethnic group was this readily available in a product, however innocuous the intentions, what is the chance that there would be at least some public reaction to it? I don’t want to make a big issue out of this because I don’t have any serious complaints about “reverse discrimination” and I know there’s a whole discussion of issues like this going on elsewhere. I just think it can be interesting (& perhaps enlightening) to consider how the treatment of different ethnic groups varies. Could sports teams get away with treating blacks the way that they treat Native Americans (think Redskins, Chief Wahoo, the Tomahawk Chop,…)? Is there assymmetry in the jokes that are allowed about different groups? (I had a friend who thought the allowed-to-joke-about hierarchy was like the social hierarchy upside down - “oppressed” groups can tell jokes about any group that’s “less oppressed”.) If it is possible to interpret material as disparaging to blacks, is that decried as “hidden racism” while material that could be interpreted as disparaging to whites is seen as harmless? And so on.

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knock knock, I’m sure you’re a wonderful person, but you’re thinking too hard here.

“Cracker” has multiple meanings, unlike, for example, “n*gger.” I would venture that no one has even dreamed that the “cracker” part of “Cracker Jack” has anything to do with the negative racial meaning of “cracker”–except you. You’re reaching way too far to find something that doesn’t exist.

Do a little research, and I think you’ll find that a number of American Indians have voiced objections to any team names or mascots that reference them. Very little has been done about it because American Indians have virtually no political or cultural clout in the U.S.

Groups that have had longstanding economic, legal, political, cultural, etc. advantages have far less likelihood of suffering any harm from ethnic jokes that target them. When all these other factors are equal for everyone, then there will be equal outrage (or lack thereof) for jokes about them.

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As opposed to [1896
Louis Rueckheim , F.W.'s brother and partner, discovers the process for keeping the molasses-covered popcorn morsels from sticking together. This secret formula is still in use - and is still a secret - to this day.

Louis Rueckheim gives the treat to a salesman who exclaimed “That’s a Cracker Jack!” “So it is,” said F.W. Rueckheim, who had the words trademarked.
. . .
1918
SAILOR JACK™ and his dog, BINGO™, first appear on packages. SAILOR JACK™ was modeled after F.W. Rueckheim’s young grandson, Robert.](http://www.fritolay.com/consumer/funfoods/history/crackerjack.html)Note the date. At that time, every merchandising image was white unless they were playing off a racial stereotype. In addition, there is no reason to believe that the Rueckheims would have wanted to associate their product with a word that was a slur even in those days.

Some of your ponderings may lead somewhere, but this seems to be a dead end.

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I’m reminded of the big flap a couple years ago about the government official in DC who temporarily lost his job after using the word “niggardly” in a statement of some kind.

Here’s a cite from Feb. 4, 1999 (and holy cow you can find some freaky stuff by Googling the word “niggardly”):

D.C. Mayor Acted ‘Hastily,’ Will Rehire Aide

By the way, what would you like to happen? Cracker Jack changes its name? Fat chance; you don’t spend 110 years building name recognition and then throw it away.

Your concern is appreciated, but I think you need find a bigger windmill.

Wait, that reference made no sense.