{"id":45240,"date":"2012-12-26T13:00:42","date_gmt":"2012-12-26T18:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=45240"},"modified":"2017-09-17T16:25:21","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T21:25:21","slug":"slavery-and-the-watermelon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/12\/26\/slavery-and-the-watermelon\/","title":{"rendered":"Watermelon: Symbolizing the Supposed Simplicity of Slaves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>For the last week of December, we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you pay attention to racist portrayals of African Americans, you will notice the frequent appearance of watermelons. \u00a0The trope has its roots in American slavery.<\/p>\n<p>Why watermelons? \u00a0According to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ferris.edu\/jimcrow\/question\/may08\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">David Pilgrim<\/a>, the curator of the Jim Crow Museum, defenders of slavery used the watermelon as a symbol of simplicity. \u00a0African Americans, the argument went, were happy as slaves. \u00a0They didn&#8217;t need the complicated responsibilities of freedom; they just needed some shade and a cool, delicious treat.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/abagond.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/10\/the-watermelon-stereotype\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Abagond<\/a>\u00a0has a nice collection of images showing black people delighted to be eating watermelon.\u00a0Here the copy makes explicit the idea that slaves needed little but a watermelon to make them happy:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/02\/4.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-45243\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/02\/4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"342\" height=\"217\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I think this is an interesting example of the way in which supposedly random stereotypes have <em>strategic<\/em> beginnings. \u00a0The association of Black people with a love of watermelon isn&#8217;t just a neutral stereotype, nor one that emerged because there is a &#8220;kernel of truth&#8221; (as people love to say about stereotypes). \u00a0Instead, it was a deliberate tool with which to misportray African Americans and justify slavery.<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the last week of December, we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2012. If you pay attention to racist portrayals of African Americans, you will notice the frequent appearance of watermelons. \u00a0The trope has its roots in American slavery. Why watermelons? \u00a0According to\u00a0David Pilgrim, the curator of the Jim Crow Museum, defenders of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2124,253,283,285,1760],"class_list":["post-45240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-foodagriculture","tag-history","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45240"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71629,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45240\/revisions\/71629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}