By: Lisa Betty

I have gratitude to the Palestinian liberation movement for allowing the world to reinterpret the meaning of the watermelon to its original glory. In 1967, Israel made it illegal for Palestinians to raise the red, green, black, and white flag in occupied territories. During the flag ban, Palestinians used watermelon as a symbol for the flag, as well as Palestinian liberation and resistance to Israeli occupation. Israel lifted the flag ban in 1993. Because the flag is still heavily policed, the watermelon has endured as the symbol of sovereignty, justice, and resistance. Throughout historic and current protests for Palestinian liberation across the world, watermelon remains symbolic. Furthermore, through social media, the watermelon emoji (🍉) has been pivotal in bypassing censorship on a multitude of social media platforms.

In addition to the historic and current support of US-based Black activists for Palestine and Black American and Palestinian solidarity in resistance, watermelon symbolism for freedom, liberation, and sovereignty demonstrates historical symbiosis between both justice movements. In the 1800s, for many Black people in the United States, watermelon meant freedom, joy, and economic sovereignty: Funds raised to buy the freedom of enslaved family members; Juneteenth community celebrations where the red fruit was served as an ode to the abolition of slavery in 1865; community institutions, such as schools, churches, healthcare and mutual aid facilities built with contributions from watermelon and fruit vendors; and the societal contributions of Black cultivators and sellers of this amazingly nutrient dense and hydrating fruit.

For more than 150 years, US-brand white supremacy punished Black people and stripped the positive meanings of the fruit to stigmatize us. White America installed dangerous and disgusting narratives based on blackface minstrelsy about Black people and watermelon —associating its consumption with laziness and deviance. Throughout the many modern technical advancements of mainstream media in the US and American-centered global popular culture, the watermelon has been sustained as a symbol of shame, distorted myths, as well as violent propaganda against Black people.

It will take time to heal from a more than 150-year-old narrative, which caused immeasurable harm and was used as propaganda for apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Black people in the US and throughout the Western Hemisphere. However, the transformation of this symbolism back to its original meaning of freedom, pride, community, and liberation feels like home and feels like healing. As I retell the story of the watermelon as a symbol for Palestinian liberation and resistance to Israeli occupation and against the violent besieging of Gaza and the West Bank, I also see it as restoring the positive narrative of the Middle Eastern/African fruit.

Watermelon has been placed back on the pantheon of liberation and sovereignty. This reinterpretation has been personally healing. I am a Black American and Jamaican who learned about Palestine through South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, the interlinked US-Caribbean Black Radical Tradition, and Black Muslim communities. I am proud that the Palestinian-led movement for liberation usurped the watermelon from white supremacy’s grip and reasserted its symbolic meaning as freedom, empowerment, and resistance.

I write this with a lump in my throat and an expo marker in my bag, thinking about scholar-activist Refaat Al-Areer’s poem “If I Must Die” and the almost 30,000 Gazans martyred and missing at the hands of the Israeli government with support from the United States. “If I Must Die” feels very connected to Black Jamaican American poet Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die” published in 1919. McKay’s poem laid bare the historical underpinnings of mass lynchings, genocide, terrorism, land seizures, and displacement that were pronounced features of the US apartheid era (1865-1968). The connections between Al-Areer and McKay’s pieces are subtle, potent, and purposeful. And within the many layered, beautiful, and devastating meanings of Al-Areer’s poem, there is a poignant ode of solidarity against oppression that transcends and navigates through geography, space, time, and so forth.

Like the poet June Jordan, I hold my deepest apologies to the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Occupied Palestine, and the global diaspora.

Your pain is not a spectacle.

Your liberation is Our liberation.

Your resistance is Our resistance.

We will never stop resisting.

Lisa Betty

January 5, 2024

This piece is an excerpt from Flavours of Freedom, an e-Book to fundraise for Gaza and in solidarity with Palestine created by Global Majority vegans.100% of the book's proceeds will be split equally between PCRF (@thepcrf) and Sulala Animal Rescue (@sulalaanimalrescue).

Watermelon, Solidarity, and Liberation

By: Lisa Betty