Twitch streamer Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker was banned from Twitch for a week in 2021 for using a word considered a racist term for white people: “cracker.” But now, in 2022, a snack company is using that ban as a way to advertise, giving the streamer a “cracker pass.”
What is that swear word? It is the word “cracker” or “cracka”. In German, this is a completely harmless word that describes a “biscuit-like pastry”, something to nibble on: something that cracks so nicely when you bite into it.
In the United States, the word also has this meaning, but an additional one: it is used as a pejorative term for white people. It is not known why cracker is used as a derogatory term for white people, but there are several theories:
The exact origin of the word in its racist form is somewhat unclear, in any case, cracker has established itself as a racist, derogatory term for “white people”.
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What did the Twitch streamer do? HasanAbi is a political streamer on Twitch that is strongly positioned on the left spectrum. In December 2021, Piker said:
I get called cracker more times than any of you other fucking white little cracker bitches in my chat, okay?
He wanted to defend one of his banned mods, but was also banned from Twitch himself.
HasanAbi poked fun at being banned for an “anti-white, racist word” on December 14.
Snack company gives HasanAbi official permission to say crackers
This is the new twist now: On Nov. 18, snacks company WheatThins wrote to the streamer that they left a “small gift” at their door.
HasanAbi got upset about it at first – where did such a company get its address from, but then opened the gift:
In fact, along with a bunch of snacks, the cracker company gave him permission to use an official “passport,” henceforth the word cracker.
Piker then also said:
“It’s official. I can say it, Twitch, I can fucking say it now. I can call someone the C-word and you can’t ban me. Do you understand? I have Cracker Pass.”
With the “cracker” pass, the company alludes to a gag: the “N-Word pass,” permission to say a word that is actually used as a racist swear word against black people.
Blacks have the “N-Word Pass”, so they can use the word. But for everyone else it is absolutely forbidden.
Why is this such an issue? For people on the left of the political spectrum, the discussion seems to be overheated because the word “cracker”, which they consider harmless, is punished here in the same way as other racist swear words.
For HasanAbi or sites like Kotaku, “cracker” is harmless and certainly not on the same level as racist swear words aimed at minorities.
You can see Twitch in a dilemma here: In trying to be fair in all directions, the critics overdo it – in the eyes of the critics – with the penalties, by equating things that are not the same:
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