I First Tried Watermelon at 30...

I first tried watermelon at 30. A 30 year old Black woman that never tried the fruit probably sounds unheard of... but there I was trying it. And for what reason- you ask? Because I knew I didnt like it ofcourse. I didnt like the looks I'd saw it get or the snickers from other classmates growing up in all mostly "Privileged" schools. That was back when keeping up a "token" image was silently expected of me. But now- this summer- I was bartending at a nice new italian pizza bar (yes pizza & bar) in a more socially aware world than the one I had grew up in. In this world, it's ok to identify as anything you want to and express anything you feel. The only similarity was that I was still the only Black woman on staff in a tourist packed restaurant- and here I was on my first day ... being asked to make a watermelon margarita. It was a hot day and people could pass by the bar window on my level to grab a drink- so I must have reluctantly made 30 watermelon-ritas before my break. And all I could think of on that break was those damn smiling faces drinking it so boldly on the street. BECAUSE DONT THEY KNOW?! DIDNT they see those same vile pictures and those same looks I'd seen? Didnt they know the words of hate for people like me that those pictures represented? Were some of them laughing at me after while they walked away drinking them? A part of me was fuming that i even had to make it at all. And then... I heard something in me say

"jus try it'

As ive been getting older, my rationale tends to speak over my emotions in a very condescending Morgan Freeman-like voice.

"How could you sit here and make all these assumptions about something you never tried?!"

And just as surely as i'd made sure not to eat it for 30 years, I was now determined to do exactly that. I tossed my margarita pizza aside and made myself a watermelonrita with extra slices, I took that plate outside to a corner where no one was sitting on the patio beacuse it was directly in the sun, sat on that hot bench and bit one of them. Needless to say, the anger immediately radiated off of me and drowned in a refreshing crisp wave of taste as soon as i did. It taste like it was made out of my moms old crystal light packets when she was on one of her "diets" again and wouldnt buy us juice. The perfect amount of water and flavor to quench a thirst I didnt know I had. I remember laughing at myslef for how quickly I finished the rest. But I will also never forget that day- because it was the day that I broke a stereotype I was helping continue.

Everybody loves watermelon- not just Black people. And everyone loves it best in the SUMMERTIME.

That same night I did a deep dive to uncover if everything i'd been told and felt about watermelons was true- and ofcourse it wasn't. I quickly learned that the fruit was a staple in one of the first Black entrepreneur ideas to ever exist- being sold exclusively by Black farmers to raise money during harvests. It was hate of that success that prompted the propanda and stereotypes that followed. So when you ask me what summertime taste like to me nowadays-

it tastes like a FREE slice of watermelon, wisdom and wealth.