With a single phrase , Rachel Jeantel , that friend of Trayvon Martin 's , may have lit a fuse in the trial of his accused killer . Asked by the defense what Martin told her on the phone that night when he first spotted George Zimmerman , she testified a `` creepy-ass cracker '' was following him . There is nothing illegal about that . Jeantel said she did n't even know it was a racial slur , and numerous commentators have noted that some in Florida use the term in a non-derogatory , colloquial sense . But for plenty of rural , white southerners , `` cracker '' is a demeaning , bigoted term , and its appearance does nothing to help the prosecutors . The origin of cracker is murky . Some sources suggest it came from overseers who commanded slaves . Others say it derives from a Scottish word for boasting . At The Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina , Bill Ferris says it emerged in the 1700s as a descriptive term for drovers who used small whips to move their livestock through the pine barrens along the Gulf of Mexico . `` They were basically poor people . White people . A class of people who were landless . '' Initially , cracker was not a pejorative term , but Ferris says it has become one , the equivalent of redneck . Its meaning and intensity as an insult depends on who is saying it and who is listening . For example , a white who might not object to being called a cracker by another white might consider Martin 's use of the phrase offensive and evidence of ill intent . In the circumstances described in court , Ferris notes , it was more likely a quick way for Martin to say he was in danger . `` If it is used by blacks ( among themselves ) , it is usually with one meaning : Watch out . He did n't say it to Zimmerman . He said it to convey a message to a friend . He said , 'trouble is coming . ' '' Still , even if Martin knew precisely what the term meant and said it with all the venom he could muster , does that matter ? Maybe . Under Florida 's hate crime laws , Martin 's words could potentially have been used against him had he survived the encounter and Zimmerman had taken the worst of it . That may seem far-fetched , but a state handbook advises that a hate crime may have occurred `` if the commission of ( a ) felony or misdemeanor evidences prejudice based on the race , color , ancestry , ethnicity ... '' Complicating the matter further : Despite suspicions among many case watchers that Zimmerman followed Martin largely because he was African-American , the only mention of race from the defendant in his call to the police that night about a `` suspicious guy '' came when he was questioned . `` This guy , '' the dispatcher asks , `` is he white , black , or Hispanic ? '' Zimmerman responds , `` He looks black . '' Where did the N-word come from ? All of this may seem pointless to people who focus on the central fact of this case : No matter how the conflict began , police say it ended with an armed man killing an unarmed one . The debate over cracker may furthermore seem arcane to people who live north of the Mason-Dixon line , where cracker is seldom heard , and even when it makes an appearance , it is not freighted with decades of history . To be sure , cracker is not on par with the n-word , but it is nonetheless a sharp racial insult that resonates with white southerners even if white northerners do n't get it . That said , ask Ferris what impact the word will ultimately have on public opinions of this trial , and he is succinct . `` I would say none . '' Views of justice , he says , are inextricably linked to racial attitudes . Many blacks will see this trial one way , many whites another way , just as they did in the case of O.J . Simpson . But the broader public does not matter . What matters is the jury . And it is hard to imagine how it can help the prosecution for those six southern women to know Martin spent some of his final moments uttering a racial insult , no matter what he intended .
Trayvon Martin 's friend , he described George Wallace as a ` ` creepy - man . '' The term introduced itself into Zimmerman 's second - degree murder trial . ` ` Cracker '' has a murky history but generally describes poor whites . The slur is widely considered an insult among white southerners .