All groups tell stories, but some groups have the power to impose their
stories on others, to label others, stigmatize others, paint others as
undesirables--and to have these stories presented as scientific fact,
God's will, or wholesome entertainment. Watermelons, Nooses, and
Straight Razors examines the origins and significance of several
longstanding antiblack stories and the caricatures and stereotypes that
support them. Here readers will find representations of the lazy,
childlike Sambo, the watermelon-obsessed pickaninny, the buffoonish
minstrel, the subhuman savage, the loyal and contented mammy and Tom,
and the menacing, razor-toting coon and brute.
Malcolm X and James Baldwin both refused to eat watermelon in front of
white people. They were aware of the jokes and other stories about
African Americans stealing watermelons, fighting over watermelons, even
being transformed into watermelons. Did racial stories influence the
actions of white fraternities and sororities who dressed in blackface
and mocked black culture, or employees who hung nooses in their
workplaces? What stories did the people who refer to Serena Williams and
other dark-skinned athletes as apes or baboons hear? Is it possible that
a white South Carolina police officer who shot a fleeing black man had
never heard stories about scary black men with straight razors or other
weapons? Antiblack stories still matter.
Watermelons, Nooses, and Straight Razors uses images from the Jim Crow
Museum, the nation's largest publicly accessible collection of racist
objects. These images are evidence of the social injustice that Martin
Luther King Jr. referred to as "a boil that can never be cured so long
as it is covered up but must be exposed to the light of human conscience
and the air of national opinion before it can be cured." Each chapter
concludes with a story from the author's journey, challenging the
integrity of racial narratives.
