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Good Reads. ‘The Pain of the Watermelon Joke.’

Watermelon


Author Daniel Handler’s (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket) crude racial joke about fellow author Jacqueline Woodson at the National book awards on November 19th, sent shockwaves through the literary community. Fellow writers, Roxane Gay, Kwame Alexander and Laila Lalami, and many others alongside a host of publications condemned the comments.


In addition to issuing a heartfelt apology, Handler donated $110,000 to the organization We Need Diverse Books, but the sting of his joke was still felt, for many. The joke harkened back to a centuries old stereotype and opened old wounds. Author Jacqueline Woodson recently broke her silence on the situation, penning an essay for The New York Times, writing,

It was the late ’60s and early ’70s, and even though Jim Crow was supposed to be far behind us, we spent our days in the all-black community called Nicholtown in a still segregated South.

One year, we bought a watermelon off the back of a man’s pickup truck and placed it in our garden. As my grandfather snapped pictures from his box camera, we laughed about how we’d fool my mother, who was in New York, by telling her we’d grown it ourselves. I still have the photo of me in a pale pink dress, beribboned and smiling, sitting on that melon.

But by the time I was 11 years old, even the smell of watermelon was enough to send me running to the bathroom with my most recent meal returning to my throat. It seemed I had grown violently allergic to the fruit.

Read More at The New York Times.

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