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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / This Week In Blackness / Watermelon-Flavored Toothpaste? Seriously?

Watermelon-Flavored Toothpaste? Seriously?

by Elon James White|  October 3, 20141:11 pm| 57 Comments

This post is in: This Week In Blackness

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Maybe he didn’t mean to be racist. Maybe Boston Herald cartoonist Jerry Holbert really was just thinking about kid-flavored toothpastes when he created this cartoon:

01-boston-herald-obama-cartoon.w529.h352.2x

But this is why you need to have people of color on your staff. Someone to say hey, Boston Herald, maybe people would find that offensive. Or hey, New York Times, maybe you shouldn’t throw around the term “Angry Black Woman.” Or hey, People Magazine social media intern, maybe you should notice that Viola Davis isn’t playing a maid in How to Get Away with Murder, and so that tweet sounds really racist. Post-racial America is great, isn’t it?

Team Blackness also discusses the resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson, the Michael Dunn verdict, and why you should never turn your back on Florida cops.


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Reader Interactions

57Comments

  1. 1.

    ET

    October 3, 2014 at 1:23 pm

    I am white and I know that using watermelon in any context when reference African Americans is like a dog whistle to a certain kind of white reader. It isn’t rocket science. He might not have meant to be insensitive or whatever but he did end up speaking to a certain segment of the population.

  2. 2.

    Belafon

    October 3, 2014 at 1:25 pm

    Maybe you could start NAEWP (the National Association for the Education of White People). Volunteers could go out into the community, find white people to mingle with, and point out to them when they are 1) about to say something racist 2) enjoy an advantage only whites get.

  3. 3.

    shelley

    October 3, 2014 at 1:34 pm

    The cartoonist tried to explain that one version was ‘raspberry flavored’. So why did he change it?

  4. 4.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    October 3, 2014 at 1:35 pm

    Maybe Boston Herald cartoonist Jerry Holbert really was just thinking about kid-flavored toothpastes when he created this cartoon

    That is what my mother would have called a “bullshit excuse” when I was growing up. Nobody is that tone-deaf. Nobody.

  5. 5.

    Mnemosyne

    October 3, 2014 at 1:40 pm

    Butbutbut Alessandra Stanley was saying that Rhimes wasn’t an angry black woman by invoking the stereotype of an angry black woman! Why are you all so mmmmeeeaaaannn to her when she meant so well?
    /snark

    My experience with a major newspaper was brief, 20 years ago, and on the opposite coast, but there did seem to be an attitude that entertainment news articles should be “gotchas!” to embarrass entertainment brass. Still not sure why, but that was the attitude.

  6. 6.

    Mnemosyne

    October 3, 2014 at 1:44 pm

    @Belafon:

    I know that people love to bash on my alma mater, the University of Spoiled Children, but just living in student housing exposed me to way more people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds than I ever would have experienced going to college in the Midwest. My various roommates were Hawaiian, Latina, Black, Arab-American, and Asian-American. I think the only time I had a white roommate was when my best friend and I roomed together for a semester (that didn’t work out, because I am a horrible horrible slob). And, yes, I learned very quickly that I had said something stupid or ignorant just by the look I would get and would try not to say that stupid or ignorant thing again.

  7. 7.

    Gordon, the Big Express Engine

    October 3, 2014 at 1:45 pm

    Isn’t it more plausible that the cartoonist is saying that the kind of nut job that would jump a fence and race into the White House of this President is the same type of person that would say something like this… That’s how I read it anyway.

    It would be hard for him to explain it like that after the fact.

  8. 8.

    cckids

    October 3, 2014 at 1:47 pm

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: In addition to which, why would the Pres. be using kid-flavored toothpaste? Stupid on all kinds of levels.

  9. 9.

    Bobby Thomson

    October 3, 2014 at 1:48 pm

    @shelley: The syndicate asked him to change it after the watermelon version ran in the Herald.

  10. 10.

    jl

    October 3, 2014 at 1:55 pm

    ” Maybe he didn’t mean to be racist. Maybe Boston Herald cartoonist Jerry Holbert really was just thinking about kid-flavored toothpastes when he created this cartoon ”

    Need to cut the BS on this. The guy knew what he was doing. He is a political cartoonist for cripes sake. Otherwise he is mentally impaired.

    He was either making a racially bigoted wisecrack that pandered to the very tired racial humor that is popular among white bigots. Or, he tried for some kind of ironic comment, and flubbed it big time. I don’t see anyway around those two alternatives.

    He should have either apologized for churning out sub par bigot humor, or explained the joke he was trying (but failed) to make and then apologize.

  11. 11.

    kc

    October 3, 2014 at 1:59 pm

    I think the outrage over the Stanley column was . . . dumb. Apparently the first sentence made people see so much red they couldn’t read beyond it.

  12. 12.

    scav

    October 3, 2014 at 2:02 pm

    @Gordon, the Big Express Engine: It’s a well publicized hobby of the KKK and allies to sneak into AA houses and bathe. That insisting on separate drinking fountains and bathrooms is just soooooo retro, as are the burning crosses, threats of violence and intimidation while voting. A few of the older members will keep trying to light the bars of soap but it just doesn’t work so well, hence the experimentation with toothpaste brands.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    October 3, 2014 at 2:03 pm

    As a foreign commenter, I’d be grateful for some historical context here: why is is it a racial slur to mention watermelon in connection with black people?

  14. 14.

    Mike in NC

    October 3, 2014 at 2:06 pm

    Rightwing media like the Herald publish this crud because their readers eat it up. Why do they even bother trying to hint otherwise?

  15. 15.

    Kylroy

    October 3, 2014 at 2:06 pm

    A…while ago, I can’t remember, a white basketball commentator referred to a black player as “one tough monkey”.

    And then he immediately followed it with words to the effect of “wow, that was really offensive, sorry about that”. And it blew over pretty quick.

    I don’t think this guy was trying to sneak his racism onto the editorial page, but when you screw up, own it. I totally believe he was thinking of his kids’ watermelon toothpaste when he wrote this, and he totally should have recognized why that was inappropriate for the comic. And since he didn’t, he should just admit the mistake and move on.

  16. 16.

    Mnemosyne

    October 3, 2014 at 2:06 pm

    @kc:

    It doesn’t help that a lot of people (including me) hate Alessandra Stanley in general. Why on earth does the New York Times let someone who hates TV write about TV?

  17. 17.

    kc

    October 3, 2014 at 2:07 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Here.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne

    October 3, 2014 at 2:09 pm

    @Kylroy:

    As I said when this first came up, we’re all immersed in a racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. society and from time to time our subconscious is inevitably going to fart something up from the depths that we didn’t know was there. When that happens, the only thing you can do is apologize, because trying to come up with a different, innocent story just makes you sound stupid.

  19. 19.

    kc

    October 3, 2014 at 2:10 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    It doesn’t help that a lot of people (including me) hate Alessandra Stanley in general. Why on earth does the New York Times let someone who hates TV write about TV?

    So much about the NYT is hate-able.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    October 3, 2014 at 2:11 pm

    @kc:
    Thank you. And is it more or less the same thing with fried chicken?

  21. 21.

    Cacti

    October 3, 2014 at 2:13 pm

    @Kylroy:

    I don’t think this guy was trying to sneak his racism onto the editorial page

    Why not?

    Do you know something about the cartoonist that has earned him the benefit of the doubt?

    Right wing cartoonist prints racially charged cartoon for right wing newspaper. Sounds like a case of walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck to me.

  22. 22.

    kc

    October 3, 2014 at 2:14 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    More or less, I think.

    If I recall correctly, when Tiger Woods won his first Masters, another golfer (Fuzzy Zoeller) got in trouble for making some crack to the effect that Woods would have fried chicken and watermelon served at the banquet.

  23. 23.

    Kylroy

    October 3, 2014 at 2:16 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Pretty much. Although watermelon is eaten by plenty of Americans besides African Americans, and fried chicken seems to be a hit with, well, the entire world, the stereotypes persist.

  24. 24.

    Eric U.

    October 3, 2014 at 2:16 pm

    @Cacti: toothpaste thing is almost a perfect dog whistle, if he had asked about the fried chicken flavor there would be no denying it was a racist trope. The fact that there actually is watermelon flavored toothpaste gave him the hope of cover. Reminds me of when College Republicans do something racist, they always try to come up with some obviously b.s. cover excuse.

    @Amir Khalid: yes, it’s fried chicken and watermelon all the way down

  25. 25.

    kc

    October 3, 2014 at 2:17 pm

    @kc:

    Sort of on topic, a local (black) newspaper columnist wrote a book entitled “Proud. Black. Southern (But I Still Don’t Eat Watermelon in Front of White People)”

  26. 26.

    Kylroy

    October 3, 2014 at 2:18 pm

    @Cacti: …because I prefer to focus on what I can prove (he’s an idiot) than what I can’t (he’s a dog-whistling racist)?

  27. 27.

    Cacti

    October 3, 2014 at 2:22 pm

    @Kylroy:

    because I prefer to focus on what I can prove (he’s an idiot) than what I can’t (he’s a dog-whistling racist)?

    A central feature of dog-whistle racism is plausible deniability.

  28. 28.

    rikyrah

    October 3, 2014 at 2:24 pm

    Some Blacks See Secret Service as Flawed Shield for the President

    By PETER BAKER
    OCT. 2, 2014

    WASHINGTON — Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland was at the grocery store the other day when he ran into an elderly black woman who expressed growing concern about President Obama’s safety. Why, she asked, wasn’t he being better protected by his Secret Service agents?

    The furor that led to this week’s resignation of the director of the Secret Service resonated deeply among blacks, outraged that those supposed to be guarding the first black president were somehow falling down on the job — and suspicious even without evidence that it may be deliberate.

    “It is something that is widespread in black circles,” said Representative Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri, who like Mr. Cummings is an African-American Democrat who has been approached repeatedly by voters expressing such a concern. “I’ve been hearing this for some time: ‘Well, the Secret Service, they’re trying to expose the president.’ You hear a lot of that from African-Americans in particular

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/us/politics/in-secret-services-missteps-blacks-sense-a-flawed-shield-for-the-president.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=1

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    October 3, 2014 at 2:24 pm

    I just came from Booman Tribune where I saw that BooMan is okay, in spite of his health care.

    So when I got here and saw the cartoon, my eyes were blurry with happy tears. What I saw was an animal brushing his teeth and another animal in the bathtub, so I thought “what’s the big deal, kids love watermelon”.

    Then my eyes cleared up and I saw the caption and saw that was supposed to be the president brushing his teeth. OH. ::big thud:: NOT FUNNY.

    Even without the watermelon, it’s supposed to be funny to think that an intruder might make it into the president’s bathroom? I find that to be in bad taste, but the watermelon angle? That’s beyond offensive and it’s inexcusable. There’s absolutely no credible way that this cartoonist didn’t know exactly what he was doing.

    How can people like this keep their jobs???

  30. 30.

    Kylroy

    October 3, 2014 at 2:26 pm

    @Cacti: Oh, agreed. It means that if I try to pin racism on him, we can have an endless circular argument about how he truly feels about black people at his core.

    But if I focus on the facts at hand (this cartoon is racist whether you meant it to be or not, and you should have recognized that before printing it), we can discuss his ignorance rather than the unknown depths of his psyche.

  31. 31.

    Mnemosyne

    October 3, 2014 at 2:30 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I don’t necessarily find the premise itself to be bad, because it’s a comment on the laxness of the Secret Service, which for obvious reasons a lot of people have been commenting on. But the guy basically shitcanned his own cartoon by putting the watermelon “joke” in there.

  32. 32.

    catclub

    October 3, 2014 at 2:37 pm

    @rikyrah: I would suspect that Secret Service Agents think a lot about both short and long term consequences of a successful presidential assassination. I bet they realize that the short term is Obama is dead, but the long term is that he becomes a Saint and a Cause.

    Any SS agent thinking about letting down his guard so that the President might suffer an accident, would know this. They might be even more determined for that not to happen.

  33. 33.

    kc

    October 3, 2014 at 2:43 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I don’t necessarily find the premise itself to be bad, because it’s a comment on the laxness of the Secret Service, which for obvious reasons a lot of people have been commenting on. But the guy basically shitcanned his own cartoon by putting the watermelon “joke” in there.

    Yep.

  34. 34.

    Kathleen

    October 3, 2014 at 3:07 pm

    @rikyrah: I’m glad to see that a major media outlet has finally reported on concerns of African Americans regarding Secret Service and magnitude of disrespect directed towards President Obama. I’ve seen ad nauseam on TV coverage of “aggrieved” white people and their fears, but I’ve not seen anything about how African Americans feel about treatment of Obama. I wonder if I’m just missing coverage or…oh, never mind. I haven’t missed a damned thing. Media by and large don’t cover it. Makes me so mad.

  35. 35.

    Someguy

    October 3, 2014 at 3:13 pm

    The Secret Service is clearly trying to get the President killed. Okay, sure.

    I guess that means that the Republican hearings earlier this week, reaming out the Director and causing her to resign a couple hours later were just to cover up the right wing conspiracy and make all the lapses seem like accidents, and so that nobody would suspect the Republicans of being behind it.

    …aaaaand those chemtrails are from UN helicopters that are putting flouride in your water, which lowers your IQ so that you go along with the vaccination program that causes autism and turns you into a soshulist.

  36. 36.

    ThresherK

    October 3, 2014 at 3:21 pm

    @Gordon, the Big Express Engine: I s your handle a nod to the most criminally underrated XTC album?

    PS Why do Il get the feeling Tom Toles would never have that version on his drawing board?

  37. 37.

    Tone In DC

    October 3, 2014 at 3:33 pm

    Uh, um… hasn’t the Boston Herald been printing this kind of shit for decades? And, like many newspapers, hasn’t that rag taken a sharp turn to the right since late 2008?

    I just read the passage below. Admittedly, on a Friday afternoon, I may simply be in strong need of a chuckle.

    Pat Roberts’ dwindling chances for re-election were squashed even flatter this week by the failure of last-ditch efforts by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to force Democrats to run a candidate rather than allow independent Greg Orman to consolidate the anti-Roberts vote. Kobach, facing a serious challenge in November from a Democrat who used to be a Republican until Brownback helped push her out in the primary, has been fighting bravely for nearly a month to get those lazy Kansas Dems to run somebody — anybody — against Pat Roberts, after their candidate Chad Taylor took one for Team America and stepped aside. When the Kansas Supreme Court told Kobach to just leave Chad Taylor alone already, Kobach tried to hitch the state to a lawsuit to force the issue, filed by an ordinary Democrat with a son working for the Republican governor’s re-election campaign. At a hearing this week where the totally legitimate plaintiff did not bother to show up, a three-judge panel officially told Kobach to just print the damn ballots.

  38. 38.

    aimai

    October 3, 2014 at 3:33 pm

    @Kylroy: It was in the Boston Herald–the entire thing is an excercise in racist-right wing-fear and hate mongering. There is literally nothing else in that rag.

  39. 39.

    Kylroy

    October 3, 2014 at 3:53 pm

    @aimai: Okay, based on that I amend my previous reasons for giving him the benefit of the doubt. And when I’m talking to people who will accept that racism is a real thing, I can run with the preponderance of evidence showing he’s racist.

    When I’m not, I’ll focus on what he *did* rather than what he *feels*. It doesn’t matter if the illustrator is a klan member or a lifelong civil rights activist – the cartoon is racist, and any American should be expected to recognize that fact.

  40. 40.

    Xantar

    October 3, 2014 at 4:02 pm

    @kc:

    To be fair, that first sentence is a really dumb one.

    But besides, I actually read the column and still think the fundamental premise is wrong. None of the Shonda Rhimes characters is angry. Scandal has a white woman who is ten times angrier than Olivia. Shonda Rhimes isn’t appropriating the Angry Black Lady stereotype. The revolutionary thing she’s doing is portraying black women who are complex, powerful, unapologetic, and also really flawed. Invoking the image of an angry black woman is completely missing the point.

    Also, lest we ever forget:

    An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite’s career included a number of errors. In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite’s coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. “The CBS Evening News” overtook “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar. Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor. Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International.

  41. 41.

    John N

    October 3, 2014 at 4:16 pm

    @Gordon, the Big Express Engine: That’s what I thought, too. I see a racist white guy (i.e. you know he’s racist because he mentioned watermelons) being presented as the intruder, and Obama in the cartoon as being shocked. The clue that it wasn’t meant to be read that way is if the cartoonist later tried to explain it as anything else besides that, which it seems like he did. And clearly, many people found it offensive, and I wouldn’t tell them that they were wrong to feel that way.

    The issue I have is that when a writer puts racist words into the mouth of a character, it doesn’t make the writer racist. It doesn’t mean the writer isn’t racist, but there has to be some latitude for writers to write offensive things, or it isn’t possible to have literature that seriously examines social issues. Not saying that this cartoon is that, though.

  42. 42.

    AnonPhenom

    October 3, 2014 at 4:17 pm

    Jay Smooth had it right. What Holbert and the paper’s editors “are” is a rhetorical black hole. The focus should be on what they “did”.

  43. 43.

    Gordon, the Big Express Engine

    October 3, 2014 at 4:22 pm

    @ThresherK: no. The Thomas the tank engine animated stuff. I have three little kids…

  44. 44.

    Gordon, the Big Express Engine

    October 3, 2014 at 4:29 pm

    @John N: right but it gets hard to explain it that way because it can come across as him saying all white people are racists or worse if he says well I really only meant certain white people like southerners or tea party people etc. probably easier just to say you flubbed the flavor thing. The cartoon has more punch if you use watermelon as the flavor because you are specifically making comment about the fact that a segment of Obama’s critics are clearly racially motivated in some way.

  45. 45.

    Kathleen

    October 3, 2014 at 4:30 pm

    @Xantar: This was the New York Times printing incorrect information that would be easily Googleable? At least they were right about Saddam’s WMD’s and Whitewater…oh, wait.

  46. 46.

    ThresherK

    October 3, 2014 at 4:33 pm

    Oops, my mistake. No kids here, minimal contact with my grown nieces and nephs during their formative years. So I could not catch aThomas the Tank Engine nod in a coal hopper.

    The English do like their railroad history, don’t they.

  47. 47.

    John N

    October 3, 2014 at 4:45 pm

    @Gordon, the Big Express Engine: This would at least make it a cartoon that’s supposed to be about something. If the intent was originally to say that white people are racist, then it’s a shame that the cartoonist couldn’t stand behind that message. Without that, what does it mean?

    I can see that the joke is supposed to be that the Secret Service is so bad, that the intruder was able to get into the President’s bathroom, and be so comfortable in doing so, that he had time to bathe. The intruder could have said nothing, and that part of the cartoon would read exactly the same way. There’s no way that any adult in this country didn’t know that mentioning watermelon in this context would bring up racist connotations. So, unless the cartoon was specifically supposed to be about racism, I just don’t see how it fits in as anything other than a gratuitous racist remark. It definitely is more attention grabbing, that’s for sure. We are talking about this cartoonist’s work, now, so it worked from that standpoint.

  48. 48.

    John N

    October 3, 2014 at 4:46 pm

    @ThresherK: My father is from England, and YES, they do!

  49. 49.

    priscianus jr

    October 3, 2014 at 4:56 pm

    Actually I suspect that whatever that intruder had in mind for the president was considerably more offensive than commandeering his bathtub and asking if he used watermelon-flavored tooth paste.
    But if there was any racism intended, I expect it was meant to be imputed to the intruder rather than the cartoonist.

  50. 50.

    priscianus jr

    October 3, 2014 at 4:58 pm

    @John N: “The issue I have is that when a writer puts racist words into the mouth of a character, it doesn’t make the writer racist. It doesn’t mean the writer isn’t racist, but there has to be some latitude for writers to write offensive things, or it isn’t possible to have literature that seriously examines social issues.”

    I agree.

  51. 51.

    John N

    October 3, 2014 at 4:58 pm

    @priscianus jr: Depicting what the intruder actually intended to do would have probably lead to a pretty sad cartoon, so I can understand why the cartoonist didn’t go in that direction!

  52. 52.

    Tree With Water

    October 3, 2014 at 5:07 pm

    I’ll tell you why that cartoonist wasn’t fired. Being as every American over the age of 5 understands the racist connotation of the cartoon, he would have owned the paper when the verdict in his wrongful termination lawsuit was announced.

  53. 53.

    ThresherK

    October 3, 2014 at 5:08 pm

    @John N: This American is going by what I see, including: “Last of the Steam Powered Trains” by the Kinks. And Neville Shunt, Railroad Timetable mystery playwright.

  54. 54.

    ruemara

    October 3, 2014 at 6:04 pm

    @John N: except, the cartoonist did not see the character that way. And he changed the punchline when his syndicate asked him to.

  55. 55.

    John N

    October 3, 2014 at 6:11 pm

    @ruemara: Yes, I know. In the second sentence in that paragraph, I said “The clue that it wasn’t meant to be read that way is if the cartoonist later tried to explain it as anything else besides that, which it seems like he did.”

    In my comment at 47, I also said “There’s no way that any adult in this country didn’t know that mentioning watermelon in this context would bring up racist connotations. So, unless the cartoon was specifically supposed to be about racism, I just don’t see how it fits in as anything other than a gratuitous racist remark.”

  56. 56.

    Dodeodo

    October 3, 2014 at 7:39 pm

    @Kylroy

    You may be referring to this:

    ” In his simulcast of the Laker-Clipper game from the Pond, Hearn reacted to Bo Outlaw’s hanging on the rim for several seconds by saying he was “up there so long he could have eaten a banana.”

    http://articles.latimes.com/1997-02-06/sports/sp-26020_1_chick-hearn

    That’s the late, great Lakers announcers Chick Hearn, and while super cringeworthy (I’m black and I remember stopping in my tracks hearing it) he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. His style was rapid-fire and he would throw jokes in the middle of describing the action and that was one of his more ill-advised ones. This watermelon line I find highly suspect.

  57. 57.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    October 3, 2014 at 7:41 pm

    @John N:

    That’s what I thought, too. I see a racist white guy (i.e. you know he’s racist because he mentioned watermelons) being presented as the intruder, and Obama in the cartoon as being shocked. The clue that it wasn’t meant to be read that way is if the cartoonist later tried to explain it as anything else besides that, which it seems like he did. And clearly, many people found it offensive, and I wouldn’t tell them that they were wrong to feel that way.

    I think the cartoon was meant to be a kind of wishfullment for the crackertards – “wouldn’t it be cool to be that intruder, go up to Obama, scare him and then call him a sambo *wink* *wink*?” You know, the kind of sulking revenge fantasies bullies have,..

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