Why do black people like watermelon

To whites, it seemed now as if blacks were flaunting their newfound freedom, living off their own land, selling watermelons in the market, and—worst of all—enjoying watermelon together in the public square. One white family in Houston was devastated when their nanny Clara left their household shortly after her emancipation in Henry Evans, a young white boy to whom Clara had likely been a second mother, cried for days after she left.

But when he bumped into her on the street one day, he rejected her attempt to make peace. Newspapers amplified this association between the watermelon and the free black person.

The juvenile freedman is especially intense in his partiality for that refreshing fruit. Two years later, a Georgia newspaper reported that a black man had been arrested for poisoning a watermelon with the intent of killing a neighbor.

The primary message of the watermelon stereotype was that black people were not ready for freedom. In these racist fictions, blacks were no more deserving of freedom than were children. By the early 20th century, the watermelon stereotype was everywhere—potholders, paperweights, sheet music, salt-and-pepper shakers. A popular postcard portrayed an elderly black man carrying a watermelon in each arm, only to happen upon a stray chicken.

And the Afro, which is the natural way to wear our hair. Their parents disowned them,'' he said. The association between blacks and watermelon dates back to the early 19th Century when bigoted documents, Aunt Jemina dolls and postcards depicting watermelon-eating blacks with uncombed hair and ragged clothing were regularly sold and circulated.

It is very much a part of the goal here to turn watermelon and other negative stereotypes into positives. Using watermelon was also a political statement aimed at other black artists in Chicago, who let others ''define their traditions,'' Brown said. There is plenty of humor in the artworks. Donald Bogle.

Micki McElya. Patricia Ann Turner. Jan Nederveen Pieterse. David Pilgrim. John Strausbaugh. Kenneth W. Marilyn Kern-Foxworth.

Joel R. Anderson , Elise Holland, and Courtney Heldreth. Privacy Terms of Use. Skip to main content. Popular and Pervasive Stereotypes of African Americans. Widespread and Pervasive Stereotypes of African Americans Stereotypes of African Americans grew as a natural consequence of both scientific racism and legal challenges to both their personhood and citizenship. I was angry with myself for letting racist rhetoric take over my taste buds.

But how did this stereotype come to be? No fruit — with the exception of that troublesome apple Eve got blamed for — has been infused with such negative significance. It could be that the watermelon came to this country with a bit of a reputation as an Other; the fruit probably originated in arid African climates ancient Egyptians even painted them or left them in pharaonic tombs, probably as water sources for the dead as they traveled thirsty between worlds.

At some point, watermelons emigrated to the Mediterranean, and pink-fleshed, green-skinned melons — the ones we know so well today — began showing up in 17th-century still-life paintings. Perverse racial logic then attached the watermelon to newly freed people, who built a nation in bondage but were slandered as indolent loafers after the Civil War. As freed people entered the market economy — as wage earners, fruit stand vendors, and emancipated hustlers — they sold watermelons in public squares and pocketed the money for themselves.

White supremacist haters took the most exception to black pleasure and enjoyment. American media of the late 19th and early 20th centuries also thrived on the idea that black Americans had a pathological weakness for watermelon.

Post-Civil War newspapers were filled with predictable anecdotes about black fruit thieves often met by armed plantation owners who argued that their melons were an irresistible draw. Medical journals wrote in scientific earnestness of the black patients — always black patients — whose intestines were clogged by watermelon seeds. An report by Dr. Holliday of Harlem, Georgia, described how he broke down a bowel obstruction using rectal manipulation, a tobacco enema, and castor oil.

Such intemperate men could not be trusted. Neither could such patently ridiculous stories, repeated until they masqueraded as truth. But the thing is, stereotypes tell on the stereotypers more than the vilified. White people tried to implicate black appetites and black character through watermelon.

But they revealed the lengths to which they would go to define propriety and argue that black people were simpletons who needed to be controlled. And here was this stereotype controlling me. And for what: something as mundane and harmless as whether I ate a piece of fruit. I polled black friends if they felt even the faintest watermelon unease.