Columbia University professor John McWhorter said on MSNBC's "All in with Chris Hayes" that it made sense for Trayvon Martin to use the term "cracker" in reference to George Zimmerman.

On Monday, he defended his statement to CollegeReform.org. He wrote in an e-mail that he had heard some whites were "appalled" by his comments made on Thursday's show.

"It's an issue of power, and privacy," he wrote. "Martin used the word in a conversation with his friend, not on television, and he was speaking as a member of a troubled minority group."

McWhorter also expressed in his e-mail that people ought to be more understanding of the troubled relationship young black men have with the law enforcement of any kind.

During his interview with Hayes and in an opinion piece written for Time, the Columbia linguistics professor said the prosecution's star witness, Rachel Jeantel, was articulate on the stand.

"[Jeantel was] articulate, just in a different kind of English than mainstream English," he told Hayes.

In his op-ed for Time, published online Friday, McWhorter explored the history of the word "cracker" and applied it to the context in which Martin used it. He also argued that the English she spoke made sense because it is the way many black people speak.

Click here to read McWhorter's opinion piece on Rachel Jeantel.

"Her English is perfect," he wrote. "It's just that it's Black English, which has rules as complex as the mainstream English of William F. Buckley. They're just different rules."

In his e-mail exchange with College Reform, McWhorter compared Jeantel's language and vocabulary to that of Paula Deen, stating the backlash of both instances are due to people not fully understanding racial issues.

"Although," he clarified, "I argued last week that we need to ease up on Deen too."

In a separate Time opinion piece, published online on June 24, McWhorter argued that, because of Deen's southern upbringing in the 1950's, "It would be downright strange if she hadn't" used the n-word."

Click here to read McWhorter's opinion piece on Paula Deen.

He wrote, "the Food Network has fired her after revelations that Deen has been a normal person of her time and place, even though she has leveled no fewer than three public apologies."

McWhorter is a Philadelphia-born linguist and political commentator whose research specialty is creole languages and how societal and cultural factors cause grammar to change over time.

Columbia University has not commented publically on the matter.