June 6, 2022
"A children's museum is apologizing after a social media user pointed out that its Juneteenth menu perpetuated stereotypes about Black people."
"The Children's Museum of Indianapolis on Friday posted about its special 'Juneteenth Jamboree' to celebrate the federal holiday that commemorates the emancipation of slaves. Shortly after, a user Jonelle Slaughter posted a comment that included a photo of the museum's 'Juneteenth Watermelon Salad.'"
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33 comments:
At least they didn't get far enough to find the children's books section in the gift shop. Titles like "The Adventures of Watermelondre & Friedchickeneesha" and "Everyone I Don't Like Is A Cracker - A Child's Guide To American Politics" would've made bigger headlines.
Phew. That was a close one.
While I always found the watermelon stereotype bizarre, I am led to wonder: how would someone celebrate Juneteenth without touching a stereotype? Indeed, any (non-standard - sic) holiday or celebration.
Everybody knows that it is the Tibetans who eat most of the watermelon in the USA!
Oh, golly. What is the point of all this agonizing about old food traditions? Black people did, in fact, eat watermelon. It's a big, juicy fruit that needs little but water to "put out," and it was therefore a popular summer snack in the South.
I suppose the complainers would have their Juneteenth celebrators eating arugula salad and sushi, with a side of boiled octopus. Sheesh.
So now kids will have to eat unfamiliar food they don't want instead of food they like and eat at home, just so some preening leftists can virtue signal.
Sorry kids, you can't have watermelon because you like watermelon as people might think you like watermelon and judge you. No chicken tenders either. Have some edemame.
Oh. I thought it was going to be something about holding your handgun sideways.
Isn't Watermelon, kinda like Fried Chicken? You know? Delicious??
It's true. Black people don't eat watermelon. Never have, never will.
I reminds me of a golfer getting into trouble because he said the menu, which is picked by the masters winner at Augusta, would be chicken and colored greens when Tiger won. 🫣
Watermelon and fried chicken are stereotypes for Black people only in the North. In the South, Everybody, both Black and white loves both. I didn't learn about them being stereotypes until I was in college.
They should serve Chinese food for Juneteenth to make sure they don't perpetuate stereotypes about black people. Save the watermelon salad for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.
The entire concept of race is based on stereotypes. Try to define "Black" or "White" Americans without resorting to stereotypes. It simply doesn't work. What shade, exactly, is "black"? What texture of hair, precisely?
Serious question for those living in the south: isn't it too early to harvest watermelon? What do I know, gardening in the pacific NW?
If you're telling me that black people don't love watermelon, fried chicken, menthol cigarettes, and grape soda, you're a liar.
My black mailman friend Ernie (yo, big E) once told me all of those were stereotypes because they were true.
I'm Italian, and for years my friends would say 'ya gonna have lasagna for thanksgiving'? And we had turkey like regular Americans. But my wife & daughter don't like turkey so for the last several years...lasagna. But don't you dare stereotype me!
As an Alabama boy of long-standing, I jes' want to point out that that ain't stereotypes. That's jes' what folks et.
You know, stereotypes, like the French with wines and cheeses, or Italians with pastas & various kinds of sauces...
Traditional: first, steal two watermelons.
Double down on insult complaints.
I wrote a book about a black man born 1941 in the heart of Jim Crow/KKK Mississippi and raised by his sharecropping grandparents in a dirt-floor shack. He told me he and his young friends often risked their lives to run into a white man's watermelon patch to steal some. The were usually shot at. The kids, having gotten away, would laugh while enjoying their spoils of war.
If they want to be accurate, they should serve Tex-Mex on Juneteenth since it commemorates, not national emancipation, but slaves being freed in TEXAS.
in the cosmic scheme of things water-melon = prophet muhammad > always an insult to somebody.
Q: iz I expected to eat the crnchy coating of fried chikn or peel it off eat meat only?
And I thought after we axed Aunt Jemima the scourge of racial stereotyping had ended.
I weep.
Then I may cut up the watermelon I have in the fridge.
Twain said, never pass up a chance to steal a chicken, if you don’t need it then there is always someone less fortunate than you who does.
EVERYTHING is RACIST if you look at everything with RACIST INTENT!!! So sick and tired of it all. They are making people racist again. Thanks Obama. Job well done!!
Poor people food. It was big, cheap and sweet. Poor people, both black and white at soul food. Because it was cheap and filling.
The food of my fathers people is peasant food. sauerkraut and sausages.
Melons are originally from Africa (thousands of years ago). It stands to reason that they'd be popular among those of African descent.
http://www.vegetablefacts.net/vegetable-history/history-of-watermelon/
Hate and disrespect can be attached to any culture by those who want to hate. Just check out the anti-Japanese and anti-German propaganda of WW2. Haters gonna hate, while the rest of us move on and eat tasty melons in the summer.
"Black people did, in fact, eat watermelon."
As did pretty much every white person I grew up with in New England. In the summer it was a staple of every back yard BBQ and clam bake you were likely to be invited to. We kids saw it as the highlight of the meal. So this whole watermelon = black people never made sense to me.
Something like this happens every few years. The line between reality and stereotypes isn't a clear one.
The next move, sooner or later, will be to recapture and reappropriate the stereotypes with pride, but that will have to wait until grievancemongering and cancel culture aren't the way to succeed in life anymore.
How do people go through their day being like this? Is there really much of a line between these "everything's racist" types and Scientologists babbling weird acronyms about LRH and KSW?
I didn't realize fried chicken and watermelon were "racially coded" until I was a teenager; growing up in the south we (non-BIPOC people) ate homemade fried chicken many Sundays and watermelon just about any time we could get it during the summer. It is both hilarious and sad to think people might shy away from enjoying either for fear of being racist (or, I suppose of living up to some racist stereotype).
I intend to plant some watermelons next year.
Dave Chapelle on feeling racist eating chicken
Where'd they get that idea? A Tex Avery cartoon?
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