In Jim Crow South, black people were denied vanilla ice cream, except on 4th of July

[Triana]

By custom rather than by law, black folks were best off if they weren't caught eating vanilla ice cream in public in the Jim Crow South, except – the narrative always stipulates – on the Fourth of July. I heard it from my father growing up myself, and the memory of that all-but-unspoken rule seems to be unique to the generation born between World War I and World War II.

But if Maya Angelou hadn't said it in her classic autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, I doubt anybody would believe it today.

People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn't buy vanilla ice cream. Except on July Fourth. Other days he had to be satisfied with chocolate.

Vanilla ice cream – flavored with a Nahuatl spice indigenous to Mexico, the cultivation of which was improved by an enslaved black man named Edmund Albius on the colonized Réunion island in the Indian Ocean, now predominately grown on the largest island of the African continent, Madagascar, and served wrapped in the conical invention of a Middle Eastern immigrant – was the symbol of the American dream. That its pure, white sweetness was then routinely denied to the grandchildren of the enslaved was a dream deferred indeed.

THE REST:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/04/black-people-vanilla-ice-cream-jim-crow-independence-day

[AverageJoe90]

1. Sadly, the Jim Crow South was extraordinarily messed up in a lotta ways.

So I can't say I'm surprised that even stuff like African-Americans not being allowed to eat vanilla ice cream except on the 4th of July was going on. This was a tragic era in SO many ways.

[nomorenomore08]

12. Any serious contemplation of that era is a tire iron to the kneecap of American exceptionalism, or

should be anyway. No way to reasonably claim, after that, that Americans have been, or are, any less cruel or ignorant than the rest of humanity.

[noiretextatique]

34. Jim Crow did not just happen in the South...it happened all over America

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jim_Crow_law_examples_by_State

[TreasonousBastard]

2. I never heard this before...

but there are a lot of things I never heard before.

Things that happened during my lifetime, and that bothers me greatly.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. Black people weren't allowed to go swimming in a lot of areas.

Most conversations about black people's relatively poor swimming skills begin and end with the assumption that it's all black people's fault. For example, there are swimming pools and beaches all around this area, so if black people don't swim as well - so the thinking goes - it must be because black people don't want to know.

But what if there is a more sinister reason to black people's unfamiliarity with the water? What if it's as simple as the long history of black people being kept out of otherwise public pools and beaches?

In a blog post this week at grist.org, environment writer Brentin Mock describes the swimming pool as one of America's most racist institutions. Mock, who lived here between 2009 and 2013, opens his piece in 1930s New Orleans. The city was considering letting black people swim at the intersection of the Industrial Canal and Lake Pontchartrain. But white people protested - "rioted" is the word Mock uses - to keep black swimmers out.

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2014/05/a_history_behind_black_people.html

[starroute]

4. Black people weren't let into the pool at Palisades Park in the 1950s

And that was just across the river from New York City.

I did a bunch of research for a thread on this a couple of years ago when the subject came up -- because I remembered going there once with my parents and that when I asked them why you had to buy a membership instead of paying admission, my mother said it was to keep Negros out. And we never went there again.

When I checked things out online, I found they'd been forced to sign some sort of non-discrimination agreement, but this was a dodge to get around it -- which would explain why my parents hadn't known beforehand. Really nasty business.


On edit: Here's that earlier post of mine:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6031852&mesg_id=6034858

In many ways, the Jim Crow North was as bad as the Jim Crow South -- and a lot more hypocritical.

[malaise]

19. Black people weren't allowed in the swimming pools in black Jamaica

in the late 50s and early 60s. A guy named Evon Blake and his Danish wife changed all that by letting his children jump into one of the fancy hotel pools. They were shocked I tell you - SHOCKED!!!

[d_r]

6. In many southern towns and cities

they closed down public pools and filled them in rather than integrate them. Many have private "club" pools now that originated at that time, although today many are integrated. Birmingham, Montgomery and other cities closed all their parks so as not to integrate the swimming pools, but cities in the north had segregated pools, too. Here is a story about it from npr http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90213675

[Marrah_G]

11. That was a great read- thank you

[betterdemsonly]

31. That is why the privatization trend is so intimately connected

racism. That is also the reason Southerners and City whites rejected the public school system.

[d_r]

33. Yes. From Detroit to Atlanta

white flight to the suburbs.

[JI7]

10. there have been recent cases where black and hispanic kids were prevented from pools, usually

because some racist asshole parent complained about "those" kids.

of course they tried to claim it had to do with the pools only being for kids from certain areas and other shit.

[Barack_America]

5. How petty. Chocolate is so much better anyway.

[Number23]

8. + an absolute million

The only way I'd eat vanilla is if it was drowned in Hershey's syrup.

[Louisiana1976]

26. Me, too.

[Sissyk]

14. This!

Vanilla is so boring in an ice cream.

[merrily]

16. I'm a chocolate person, too, but vanilla was the most popular

flavor for many years. Even with the proliferation of flavors today, vanilla ice cream is still the most popular dessert.

Besides, the issue is denying people something just to be ugly.

[freshwest]

7. So much craziness!

[tammywammy]

9. k&r

[Jamaal510]

13. Meh...vanilla ice cream

is too plain for my taste, anyway. If I eat that, I have to put some type of syrup or toppings on it.
I prefer either chocolate or strawberry ice cream...which leads me to a somewhat unrelated point: why the Hell aren't there any strawberry ice cream sandwiches out there?! They've got vanilla and some chocolate in stores, but I have yet to see any strawberry!

[Sissyk]

15. Check this out, Jamaal!

http://www.turkeyhill.com/products/ice-cream-sandwiches-flavors.aspx?pID=271

Yummy!

Also, easiest way to make ice cream sandwiches you've ever seen. Scoop your favorite ice cream between two of your favorite cookies right at home. We use graham crackers a bunch.

[FSogol]

20. ...and then dip them into a bowl of tempered dark chocolate and refreeze.

Right?

[Sissyk]

21. Yes!

and add crushed cashews or other nuts!

Yummy! I know what we are having for dessert tonight.

[FSogol]

22. Lately, I've been using a lot of toasted hazel nuts in desserts.

Of course, I make my own cookies and ice cream and use almond extract along with vanilla.

[IronLionZion]

23. Blue Bunny, Schwann's, and Walmart have it. nt

[bravenak]

27. I also want strawberry ice cream sandwiches!!!

My husband and i speak of this issue all the time.

[merrily]

17. How stupid and ugly people can get!

[ananda]

18. I grew up in Jim Crow Dallas...

... and I didn't know that.

That is bizarre, but I guess it makes some sort of demented racist sense.

[whistler162]

24. Are we sure that this is

not just a metaphor? Is there any actual historical evidence to the saying?

[Triana]

25. Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde's words/remembrance of that time...

...are good enough for me. I can't fathom why either person would make such a thing up, even as metaphor.

[ieoeja]

29. Really?

"People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn't buy vanilla ice cream."

How in the world does that not read like a metaphor?



"Whites in our town were sooooooooooo prejudiced..."

Crowd: "How prejudiced were they?!?"



"The waitress was white, the counter was white, and the ice cream I never ate in Washington DC that summer I left childhood was white, and the white heat and white pavement and white pavement and white stone monuments of my first Washington summer made me sick to my stomach for the rest of the trip."

How in the world does that not read like a metaphor?


Lorde notably does not say, "they would only sell me chocolate instead." They were refused service. Heck, in reality they may have wanted to purchase Lorde chocolate, but the whiteness of vanilla fit the narrative better. The point is unchanged: they were refused service.

People today are so caught up on details that they let the truth fly right by them.

[Triana]

30. Whatever.

I'm not going to argue this with you. You'll have to pick your fight w/ someone else.

[noiretextatique]

35. here's some truth for you

jim crow laws were so prolific, stupid, and petty, it is easy to believe this was true.

[KamaAina]

28. Except on the 4th of July.

How very American of them.

[nolabear]

32. This wasn't literally true. It was a ranking on Jim Crow.

But the laws were so stupid that it's not surprising it's being taken literally. If you think about it the laws and customs were based on fear-fear of contamination, fear of competition, fear of retribution. In fact those fears look a whole lot like the ones being voiced today in Murrieta, CA.