![]() When presents appear overnight under the fir tree, I say Santa Claus is the culprit. When teeth fall out, I blame the dollar under their pillow on the tooth fairy. The answer is intellectually complex, but parental intuition provides clarity. I can live with this, but what's to be done on the summer day when my children's eyes light up at the far-off sound of the familiar melody, and they dash in a frenzy toward me for change? Do I empower them with the history of our country, or encourage the youthful exuberance induced by the ice cream truck? Is it my responsibility to foul the sweet taste of ice cream with their first taste of racism? Whenever I hear the music now, the antique voice laughing about niggers and watermelon fills my head. However, when the reach of racism robs me of fond memories from my childhood, it feels intensely personal again. It's not new knowledge that matters of race permeate the depths of our history and infiltrate the most innocent of experiences, even the simple pleasure of ice cream (who can forget Eddie Murphy's famous, NSFW routine about the poor black experience with ice cream trucks?). This means the warm weather will soon bring out the ice cream trucks, and I'll be confronted once again by their inconvenient truth. Here in the nation's capital, the cherry blossoms have come and gone. Naturally, the traditional minstrel tunes of the previous century were employed to evoke the memorable parlor experience.Īnd this is the story of why our beloved ice cream truck plays blackface minstrel music that sends kids dashing into homes in a Pavlovian frenzy searching for money to buy a Popsicle. Ice cream trucks were the solution, and a music box was installed in them as a way to announce their presence in neighborhoods. After World War II, the advent of the automobile and the ensuing sprawl required parlors to devise a way to take their products to customers. The ice cream crossover happened concurrently: 19th century ice cream parlors played the popular minstrel songs of the day. ![]() Browne meshed the theme of the popular coon cards with the familiar melody, and voilà: "Nigger Love a Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!" ![]() These items were essentially the racist version of trading cards and were nearly ubiquitous. (If this sounds similar to the Academy Award winning " Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," it's because that song was derived from this chorus.)Īt the turn of the 20th century, one of the nation's most popular collectibles was the coon card - a postcard with racist artwork, such as bug-eyed, clown-face blacks eating watermelon. O zip a duden duden duden zip a duden day. ![]() There is simply no divorcing the song from the dozens of decades it was almost exclusively used for coming up with new ways to ridicule, and profit from, black people. The first and natural inclination, of course, is to assume that the ice cream truck song is simply paying homage to "Turkey in the Straw," but the melody reached the nation only after it was appropriated by traveling blackface minstrel shows. ![]() As often happens with matters of race, something that is rather vanilla in origin is co-opted and sprinkled with malice along the way.įor his creation, Browne simply used the well-known melody of the early 19th century song " Turkey in the Straw," which dates to the even older and traditional British song " The (Old) Rose Tree." The tune was brought to America's colonies by Scots-Irish immigrants who settled along the Appalachian Trail and added lyrics that mirrored their new lifestyle. I learned that though Browne was fairly creative in his lyrics, the song's premise and its melody are nearly as old as America itself. I wondered how such a prejudiced song could have become the anthem of ice cream and childhood summers. ![]()
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