Jacqueline Woodson Responds To Racist Watermelon Joke

Jacqueline Woodson, the National Book Award winner for the young adult memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, addressed in a recent op-ed the racist watermelon joke made by her author friend Daniel Handler, two weeks ago. Woodson, who is black, recalls in the New York Times piece how she grew up eating watermelon during summers in her southern childhood, and writes about her subsequent revulsion to the fruit—perhaps because of the watermelon’s loaded and race-ridden history. …I had seen the racist representations associated with African-Americans and watermelons, heard the terrifying stories of black men being lynched with watermelons hanging around them, watched black migrants from the South try to eke out a living in the big city by driving through neighborhoods like my own — Bushwick, in Brooklyn — with trucks loaded down with the fruit. In a book I found at the library, a camp song about a watermelon vine was illustrated with caricatures of sleepy-looking black people sitting by trees, grinning and eating watermelon.

 

Welcome to Wopular!

Welcome to Wopular

Wopular is an online newspaper rack, giving you a summary view of the top headlines from the top news sites.

Senh Duong (Founder)
Wopular, MWB, RottenTomatoes

Subscribe to Wopular's RSS Fan Wopular on Facebook Follow Wopular on Twitter Follow Wopular on Google Plus

MoviesWithButter : Our Sister Site

More News