Something I felt compelled to write about. Intersectionality through symbolism. For the unaware, we are black. and this fact has changed the way we view some things, statements, and movements. Particularly, with regards to Watermelon, and Palestine.
As many may know, it’s something of a common racist stereotype for black people to be portrayed with watermelon or as loving watermelon, what isn’t so well known is the origin, The Watermelon during the Civil War Era was the symbol of emancipation, of the freed black, and it was used proudly as a show of support by many free blacks in the south as a statement of that belief in black emancipation, the stereotype was created as a way of fighting back at this antiracist symbolism.
As many know, The Watermelon has comparatively recently taken on a different meaning, that being the standing for Gazan Freedom. The reason for this being simple, Color. Watermelons have green black red and white in them, the colors of the Palestinian Flag.
The people of Palestine have had their country brutally occupied and oppressed by apartheid Israeli settlers for what is now the better part of one hundred years. and in this time they have been banned from the usage of their own Flag, and from the display of its colors. in 1980 this came to a head, the IOF shut down a Ramallah Art Gallery stating that the usage of red green black and white by Palestinians was prohibited under all circumstances, even in something as simple as a painting of a watermelon.
So many freedoms have been robbed from the Palestinian people that to even paint a water melon is deemed a crime.
The use of Watermelon as a symbol by Palestinains is an act of defiance. an act of the refusal of the corrupt tyranny of those who deem them lesser or unworthy of the simple right to exist.
Much like the use of Watermelon by free blacks.
We share far far more in common then ever we have differences.
Black Americans understand how it is to be a second class citizen considered below human in their own place of origin.
And I’m yet to meet a black person informed of the history of the area who doesn’t throughly condemn the IOF and firmly support the freedom of Gaza and Palestine writ large.
Inshallah we shall a Free Palestine in all our lifetimes.
From the River to the Sea 🍉