The jury did not side with the plaintiffs, and though they appealed, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the initial ruling.
The black plaintiffs in that case sued the airline for discrimination because a flight attendant had used the rhyme while urging them to take their seats. It was actually a part of a 2004 lawsuit against Southwest. There's an idea that it comes from slave selection or a description of what white slave owners would do if they caught a runaway slave. The meaning: The meaning of this rhyme is rooted in the slave trade. Eenie, meenie, minie mo." An alternate version: "Catch a negro by his toe/ If he hollers make him pay/Twenty dollars every day." "Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo" ( Early 19th Century) Johnson's piece got us thinking about the songs like the ice cream truck song - a seemingly innocuous folk song, nursery rhyme, or jingle - that we may not have known were racist, and what we should do when we learn about their histories. Whenever I hear the music now, the antique voice laughing about niggers and watermelon fills my head," Johnson wrote. " When the reach of racism robs me of fond memories from my childhood, it feels intensely personal again. The song's melody, it turns out, was popularized in antebellum minstrel shows where the lyrics "parodied a free black man attempting to conform to white high society by dressing in fine clothes and using big words." To make matters worse, that song became the basis for an offensive folk song in 1916 titled, "Nigger Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!" before turning into the melody that beckons ice cream seekers today.įor Theodore Johnson III, who wrote the article, knowledge of that history ruined ice cream trucks for him. There is some offensive language below.Ī little over a week ago, NPR had an illuminating and poignant report on the the racist beginnings of the ice cream truck song. Warning: We are talking about racism in this article.
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