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Sorry to ruin your summer, but the 'ice cream truck' song is racist AF

WARNING/EDITOR'S NOTE: This article contains subject matter and some language (thought censored) that may be triggering for readers. However, in our attempt to highlight passive examples of systemic racism we felt it was a story worth sharing.

There are certain sounds that are synonymous with summer, the crack of a baseball bat, the sounds of someone cannon-balling into a pool and the tinny sound of the ice cream truck rolling down the street, accompanied by the scampering sound of children's feet.

The song played by the ice cream truck in most people's neighborhoods sounds something like this:

The Ice Cream Truck Songwww.youtube.com

The tune is "timeless," but most people don't know that the words to the most popular version of the song are incredibly racist.

The original version of the melody comes from the traditional British song "The (Old) Rose Tree" which made its way to the American colonies by Scottish and Irish immigrants in the 1700s where it was popularized as the song, "Turkey in the Straw."

In the late 1820s, the melody took a turn for the disturbingly racist when multiple songs were written about "Zip Coon," a popular minstrel character. Although it's unclear who originally wrote the lyrics, there were versions published by Thomas Birch in 1834 and George Washington Dixon in 1835.

O ole Zip Coon he is a larned skoler,

Sings posum up a gum tree an conny in a holler.

Posum up a gum tree, coonny on a stump,

Den over dubble trubble, Zip coon will jump

The chorus of "O Zip a duden duden duden zip a duden day" would later become the inspiration for Disney's "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah."

Zip Coon was a stock minstrel show character who was a way to mock free Black men. He was an arrogant, ostentatious man who wore flashy clothes and attempted to speak like affluent white members of society, usually to his own disparagement.

He was often paired with Jim Crow, a dimwitted rural character. The actors who played both roles were white and wore blackface.

via Wikimedia Commons

OLD ZIP COON - 1834 - Performed by Tom Roushwww.youtube.com

In the early 1900s, coon cards which were essentially playing cards with racist depictions of Black people eating watermelons while making wide-eyed looks, were popular and inspired another racist version of the popular melody: "Ni**er Love a Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!"

The song opens with someone telling a group of Black people to stop playing dominoes and to come get some ice cream. The racist twist is that it's "the colored man's ice cream: Watermelon!"

The hook has to be one of the most racist things every written:

Ni**er love a watermelon ha ha, ha ha!

For here, they're made with a half a pound of co'l

There's nothing like a watermelon for a hungry coon

The Truth About The Ice Cream Truck Jingle | Ni**er Love A Watermelonyoutu.be

The song would become popular in ice cream parlors of the early 1900s that often played minstrel songs. After World War II, when many people moved out the cities and into the suburbs, ice cream parlors sent trucks out to these new neighborhoods to expand their business to the 'burbs.

To keep the old-timey feel of the parlor and to alert the children to the truck's presence, they would commonly play the melody associated with the two extremely racist songs.

Hundreds of years after the melody first was written somewhere in England, American children now associate the song with one of the purest joys life has to offer, the cool taste of ice cream on a hot summer's day.

But after learning the melody's historic association with pain and oppression, can we ever hear the song the same way? Should we be happy that a timeless melody has been redeemed after decades of being associated with something positive? Or should it be banished it from being broadcast on our streets and replaced by something that better describes the joys of summer?

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In April, two black men were arrested and led out of a Philadelphia Starbucks for absolutely no reason.

On April 12, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson arrived at the coffee shop a few minutes before a business meeting. Nelson asked to use the bathroom but was denied because he hadn't bought anything. He returned to the table where he and Robinson were waiting for their associate. They were approached, The Washington Post reports, by the white manager only moments later. Her message: Buy something.

By now you probably know what happened next: Unsatisfied with whatever answer she was given, the manager called 911 and asked for help. Two men, she told the dispatcher, were refusing to buy something or leave. Nelson and Robinson were handcuffed and escorted out of the cafe by policemen. Then, they were taken to jail.

A recording of the arrest instantly went viral, with the public responding in outrage to both the manager's actions (how many of us have sat in Starbucks for hours without ordering so much as a water?) and the police's response.

— (@)

The pair recollected the traumatic incident on ABC news:

Nelson and Robinson have now reached a settlement with the city. It's a study in healing, forgiveness, and inspiration.

Though the two men could have sued Philadelphia — especially after both the mayor and the police commissioner admitted that the situation hadn't been handled correctly — they agreed to a settlement no one expected. Each man accepted a symbolic $1 from the city. In addition, The Washington Post reports, they've asked Philadelphia to fund a $200,000 grant to support area high school students with entrepreneurial dreams. According to ABC News, the mens' arrest records will be expunged. Starbucks, for their part, will pay for Nelson and Robinson's college education as part of a mostly undisclosed financial settlement. The pair will meet with former Attorney General Eric Holder, who's assisting Starbucks in creating a training on racial bias.

The injustice was horrific. For many it brought two things into stark relief for the first time.

One: Racial bias and discrimination happen on a moment-to-moment basis in America.

While some still argue that Nelson and Robinson must have done something wrong in order to have been escorted out by police (just check the comments on any news story about their arrest), the reality is the only thing the two men were guilty of was being on the wrong end of someone's prejudice. And that kind of prejudice makes what happened to Nelson and Robinson an everyday occurrence.

Shortly after the Nelson and Robinson's story blew up, a piece in The New York Times detailed the many incidents of racial bias that had occurred in the Rittenhouse Square area of Philadelphia — where the men had been arrested.

"Although black people account for just 3% of the residents in that police subdistrict, they made up two-thirds of the people stopped by the police in the first half of 2017, according to figures collected by the American Civil Liberties Union," The Times reported.

Protestors at a Philadelphia Starbucks rally against the discrimination of Nelson and Robinson. Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images.

Two: We must all work to end this type of commonplace oppression.

After the president and CEO of Starbucks met with the men to offer an apology, Starbucks announced that it would close 8,000 of its stores on May 29 for "racial bias training." While one day is hardly enough time to transform the crisis of systemic racism, the training is one step in ensuring that what the manager did doesn't happen again.

"What Starbucks is doing shows an understanding that to dismiss one employee as a crazy racist is to ignore the context in which that individual learns beliefs, pushes them on others, and abuses power. Using this as a teachable moment company-wide also sets an example," author Sara Benincasa wrote in a tweet.

Nelson and Robinson's hope? That something positive comes from such a terrible incident.

"We thought long and hard about it, and we feel like this is the best way to see that change that we want to see," Robinson, said of the settlement. "It's not a right-now thing that's good for right now, but I feel like we will see the true change over time."

Gorongosa Coffee

After an embattled few days, Starbucks caught the attention of millions on Tuesday, April 17, when they announced that they would close 8,000 of its stores for what is being called "racial-bias training."

The training will take place on May 29, and an estimated 175,000 Starbucks employees will take part.

The announcement comes a day after Johnson gave his first public interview since two young black men were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks when a manager called the police on them. Outrage over the incident went viral, leading to responses from the city's mayor and U.S. Senator Bob Casey:

— (@)

The store manager who called the police has since left the company. Johnson traveled to Philadelphia where he met privately with the two men and earned some praise for his no-nonsense apology.

"I've spent the last few days in Philadelphia with my leadership team listening to the community, learning what we did wrong, and the steps we need to take to fix it," he said in a statement announcing the store closures.

Several groups will help plan the training and monitor its progress.

It could be easy and understandable to write this off as a public relations stunt. After all, the stores will only be closed for a few hours and the exact conditions of the training are still being formulated.

However, Starbucks revealed that former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder will help plan out the training, along with NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill, and Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, amongst others.

"The company's founding values are based on humanity and inclusion," Starbucks Executive Chairman Howard Schultz said. "We will learn from our mistakes and reaffirm our commitment to creating a safe and welcoming environment for every customer."

— (@)

One day of training won't end systemic racism — but it's another step toward progress.

Changing cultural norms about race will take a relentless pursuit of justice. It won't happen overnight and it can't be done in a few hours. That's something even Kevin Johnson himself acknowledged, saying:

"Closing our stores for racial bias training is just one step in a journey that requires dedication from every level of our company and partnerships in our local communities."

Still, the move by Starbucks sends a message that most people in the company want to do better, and those affected by racism and other forms of prejudice are increasingly being heard and seen when others speak out.

Abby Erdmann had a pretty privileged upbringing, which she says she thinks about constantly.

But Erdmann was also something of an outsider, despite her privilege. Growing up in New York in the 1960s, Erdmann was one of three Jewish students in her school. And — by her own admission — she was fat. Some of the kids she grew up with didn’t let her forget that.

York Prep in NYC. Photo by Jim Henderson/Wikimedia Commons.

“I was aware of being marginalized. In high school, a very popular student drew a caricature of me, and had an arrow to my mouth, and said ‘n-word lips.’ I think that raised my consciousness,” she said.

The resulting awareness would eventually become her biggest asset because that combination of privilege and being an outsider helped Erdmann empathize with all kinds of people.

After she graduated from college, Erdmann became a teacher.

And Erdmann — now retired — wasn’t “just” an English teacher.

When a student in one of her classes said "race is just skin-deep," she wanted to explain to that student that it was so much more than that, but she didn't know how, and she didn't feel comfortable trying. She let the moment pass, but her discomfort sparked something within her.

Eventually, Erdmann came to recognize that she was a white woman in a world that favors whiteness. She had privilege. So, as a teacher, she decided to take her lessons beyond books. She wanted to tackle race too.

Abby Erdmann, center, with two of her former students after a workshop on Talking About Race at Primary Source. Used with permission.

In her classroom, Erdmann taught her students about race in a very unique way.

She offered support to her students of color, but she put most of the responsibility in the hands of her white students: “Because of your privilege, you have tremendous power,” she told them.

She taught her white students that they had the power to listen, to offer support to students of color, and to challenge the power structure that undermines people of color every day.

Image by Kamen Tabakov/Flickr.

“The problem of racism isn’t the problem of black kids, it’s the problem of white kids and the white power structure. So I used to work with white kids to teach them how to listen to kids of color when they spoke up, to see their own privilege, to understand definitions of racism,” she said.

This is incredibly important because you can’t challenge what you don’t understand. You can’t fight a problem if you don’t realize it exists. And you can’t do either of those things if you don’t listen to and understand the stories of people who are suffering as a result of that problem.

Erdmann gave her students the tools to understand race and to understand different perspectives, and it changed everything.

Photo via U.S. Department of Education/Flickr.

Tatiana Fernandez, a former student, nominated Erdmann for an Olmsted Award in 2011. The prize awards exceptional secondary school teachers with $3,000 and their schools with $2,500 to be used as they see fit.

In her nomination letter, Fernandez said of Erdmann: “She always knew how to be a support for minority students in particular and recognized the importance of having difficult and sometimes uncomfortable discussions. Abby was the first person to teach me, as a Latina woman, about whiteness, and be open about things like white privilege, and she was the loudest advocate for those who are normally silenced.”

Erdmann won the Olmsted Award and used that money to start a new initiative, Race Reels, in which films are shown at school assemblies/gatherings to give students and educators a jumping-off point to engage in difficult conversations about race.

For Erdmann, there’s no shame in being white, but there is responsibility.

“Racism is a problem of the 21st century ... and if people like me don’t take it on then who is going to take it on? And it’s not up to black people to fix it; they didn’t make the system, and we’re benefitting,” she said.

She puts the onus on people of privilege, like herself, to dismantle the system.

Photo via Johnny Silvercloud/Flickr.

And while she’s made her share of mistakes along the way, she doesn’t think that experiencing discomfort should mean retreating away from the problem.

She tells her white students, “Guilt is not helpful. Shame is not helpful. Action is.”

With the country so divided, teachers like Abby Erdmann matter. They give us hope for the next generation.

With so much talk around keeping refugees out, with children in poor communities drinking poisoned water, with black bodies strewn across the street, we can begin to feel helpless. Erdmann reminds us that we can make a difference, every day, and that's on us.

What can we do? We can speak up when we’ve been hurt. We can speak up when we see injustice. We can listen. We can be allies. Together, we can challenge what’s broken in our world through acts of empathy and compassion. Together, we can follow people like Erdmann and make this world a better place.

As a millennial woman, this is what I have to lose if Trump becomes our president.

“We are going to make America great again!” Trump spits from my screen.

Thousands cheer; millions tremble. Most of us watch, horrified, elated, transfixed.

“He won’t win,” my roommate assures me. “And even if he does, he won’t be able to do all the things he wants to do. There are enough good people… They won’t let him get away with it.”

I nod, and we fall silent.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

For some of us, it’s easy to distance ourselves from this election because it feels so absurd and surreal … like a nightmare unfolding in the palms of our hands.

As long as there’s a screen between us and the fear, as long as presidential debates feel more science fiction than "Black Mirror," we can hide behind sassy sound bites and meticulously manufactured indifference without ever pausing to ask ourselves that terrifying question:

What if Trump actually wins?

But for others of us, this election holds a lot of evident risk.

This August, Trump asked Americans of color what they have to lose if they vote for him. Upworthy staff writer Erin Canty posted a powerful response. And when I read what she had to say, the screen cracked. For the first time, I thoroughly considered the consequences — the true consequences — of a Trump presidency.

As a cisgendered middle-class white woman, I’d never really had to think about it. In this election, my privilege is evident. Trump’s America would be kinder to me than it would to almost any other demographic and that security can make it easy to become complacent.

When I finally set aside the blinders of my privilege, though, I remembered two very important things:

First, I remembered that being an intersectional feminist means concerning myself with the difficulties that all men and women face — and not just those that directly affect me. This is easy to forget and important to remember. There is much at stake in this election, especially for the minority members of our communities.

Second, I am reminded that there are certain losses from which checks and balances cannot protect us. These are losses of a less literal nature that require no legislation, that we would all suffer the second the results of the election reveal my worst fear.

It turns out, in Trump’s America, there’s actually a lot both you and I stand to lose, the least of which has to do with one important idea: hope.

Image via iStock.

1. As a woman, I would lose my self-worth and sense of security.

When you look at his words and actions, Trump’s misogyny paints in vivid detail what life as a woman would look like in his America. It involves women figuratively dropping to their knees, and no, it’s not a "pretty picture."

Trump’s America isn’t one that respects its women. Trump’s America is an America that values us based on the appearance of bodies we aren’t legally allowed to control. It’s an America of legislators that would pass more regulations on my uterus than on a corporation, that would punish women in back alleys but pardon men in locker rooms. It’s an America where you get six months for being a rapist and 16 years for exposing one.

Trump’s America is an America where men have more rights to my body than I do. I can’t feel valued; I can’t feel safe in an America like that.

2. As an American, I would lose my national pride.

America is a flawed country with so much work to do. But when I look back at how far we’ve come, I’m so proud to belong to a nation that always strives to become better than we were.

But how can I be proud of an America that won’t acknowledge its mistakes? An America that condemns the audacity of the first lady reminding us that our nation was built by slaves, yet refuses to see the problem witha country whose government only took one year to kill 102 unarmed black men but 232 years to elect one.

I can’t be proud of an America where guns have more protections than the people who die by them,an America that’s horrified by a transgendered person in the “wrong” bathroom but numb to the news of yet another mass shooting. I can’t be proud of an America of nearly 4 million square miles that only has room for Native Americans on its sports jerseys.

I can’t be proud of Donald Trump’s America, an America that refuses to change.

Image via iStock

3. As a human, I would lose some faith in our future.

Progress is never perfect. There’s no civilization in this world that has only just moved forward. Every now and then, we falter, take a step back, and then find our footing again.

But we can’t afford to fall this far. America needs to keep moving. If we backtrack now, I don’t know how we’ll recover. If we let our fear paralyze us, or turn us on each other, hate will divide us.

At the end of the day, no matter who you’re voting for, one thing is true: We all want America to be great.

I don’t believe in Trump, but I believe in that.

Image via iStock

From now on, I'm making a promise to stop pointing fingers at the “bad people” who made this mess and the “good people” who will fix it. It’s time to take responsibility for my country, to turn my disillusionment into determination and my inaction into incentive.

It’s time to ask ourselves what we can do to make this America one we can believe in.

Let’s get to work.

What the hell do you have to lose?

'When we tell you how we feel, don’t just listen to respond. Listen to understand.'

Are you helping more than you’re hurting?

Ally(-ies) / noun (pl.) / A person who associates or cooperates with another; supporter.

A protest against police brutality in Berkeley, California in 2014. Photo by Annette Bernhardt/Flickr.

I’m an activist, and my main platform is Twitter, so I am constantly trying to help people be better to one another in whatever ways I can.

Recently, some of my followers asked me an important question: What makes a “good” ally?

Good intentions? Solidarity? No one truly has the perfect answer, but after a good hour or so, I came up with a basic set of guidelines. Here they are:

1. Don't divert the conversation.

Am I telling you that you’re not allowed to ask about other problems? Are you supposed to care about black people's struggles and only those struggles? Of course not!

What I’m saying is that, when talking about one problem, your answer shouldn’t be to ask about another. You wouldn’t go to breast cancer rallies asking, “What about brain cancer?” so please don’t do it about black lives.

2. Amplify us.

This has always been a problem with the ally-ship of the black community. It seems as though non-black people can never tell the difference between using their status to amplify our voices and speaking for or over us.

Photo via iStock.

I’m gonna be honest: We don’t need you to pretend to know our struggle because we know you don’t. Non-black people will never experience America like black people will, and that is just something you will have to accept. But we do need you to amplify our stories, to give us platforms to speak.

3. Please stop using black pain for attention.

There have been many instances in which non-black people have used our anguish for attention. This is also known as "black pain porn." It’s a tactic news outlets occasionally use when you see the overrepresentation of black people in tragedy, but it pushes the agenda that we are somehow always in turmoil.

4. If you know you have black followers on social media, be cautious of the stuff you share.

Exposure is so important in times like these when we can watch the death of black bodies like home movies anywhere, anytime. This has brought to light so many injustices, but it has also desensitized us.

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.

But consider how traumatizing it is to see people who look like you being murdered in the street, their bodies left to rot in the sweltering heat, glamorized and projected everywhere you look. Knowing that someone was killed for just looking the way you do and that their killer will likely receive no repercussions does something unexplainable to your psyche. So, when we ask you not to post anymore videos of black bodies dying, please respect that.

5. Join organizations that help us. Black Lives Matter isn’t the only source of support.

Listen, not all of us are big fans of the Black Lives Matter organization, but that’s not an excuse to not participate in our liberation at all. It is also not every black activist’s job to point you in the right direction. The internet is an amazing source of information — look up ways to get involved in your community.

**6. When we tell you how we feel, don’t just listen to respond. Listen to understand.**

Communication is important when it comes to social justice — but know the time and place for it. A perfect example is when we riot. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Rioting is the language of the unheard.”

A riot is a symptom of extreme systemic problems. So hear us out. Don’t listen to my concerns to disregard them. Don’t listen to me to prove your own point. You may not understand or agree with what I experience, but that doesn’t give you the right to invalidate my feelings. You don’t have to condone our response to injustice to understand it.

Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images.

7. Talk to your family and friends.

If you know your surroundings are anti-black, try to fix that. Defend us when we’re not there to do it ourselves.

You’re no help to me if you’re only an ally to my face, but silent behind closed doors. All of this starts from within. Use your privilege to nip any injustice in the bud. Actions will always speak louder than words.

8. Check up on us. Our mental health is almost always overshadowed.

In the chaos that comes with movements and liberation, mental health is often pushed to the side for the sake of reaction. In fact, mental health has always been a taboo subject in the black community, so I can see how you might forget to ask, “Are you OK?”

However, it’s not fair for us to be subjected to this hate and injustice and still be expected to come out of it unscathed. Some might say, “Well, I don’t need anyone to check up on me. I’m not weak.” But that’s not the point at all, is it? It is not weak to have people care about your well-being. You’d be cheating yourself if you kept yourself from that. So ask, please ask: How are you?

What now?

Non-black allies, you don’t have to move mountains or give speeches.

Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images.

But you can be considerate. You can listen. You can ask. You can act. You can refuse to be silent. We don’t get the luxury of ignorance. Neither should you.

This ice cream company is tired of racial injustice, so they’re no longer remaining silent.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield have never been the kind of guys who shy away from demanding social justice.

When they aren’t making delightfully tasty ice cream flavors, the creators of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream are out to to ensure that the world is a better place for everyone.

This week, they made it clear that “a better place for everyone” also includes people of color:

— (@)

In a statement that encapsulates some of the best of humanity, the Ben & Jerry’s team broke down why black lives matter.

They explained the systemic inequality plaguing communities of color and the simple, yet somehow still misunderstood, concept that asking for equal rights in the eyes of the law doesn’t mean that other lives do not matter.

Photo by Ade Johnson/AFP/Getty Images.

“Black lives matter," the statement reads. "They matter because they are children, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. They matter because the injustices they face steal from all of us — white people and people of color alike. They steal our very humanity.”

The statement also explained the importance of standing together in “overcoming systemic racial injustice” by admitting there is, in fact, a problem:

“Whether Black, brown, white, or blue — our nation and our very way of life is dependent on the principle of all people being served equal justice under the law. And it’s clear, the effects of the criminal justice system are not color blind.”

Ben and Jerry’s outspoken support of Black Lives Matter is especially crucial right now.

When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem to protest systemic injustice — an act he has the constitutional right to do — he received death threats, was berated by “fans,” and was questioned about his dedication to his country.

According to the Guardian, the number of people killed by police in the U.S. this year had already surpassed 800, more than half of which have been people of color. Black women are continuously being harassed on social media by racists for merely existing as a black woman. And black actors and actresses continue to be paid less than their white counterparts.

As Ben and Jerry aptly point out: We have a very big problem.

But their commitment to social justice and political responsibility isn’t new.

The ice cream tycoons have long worked toward addressing systemic injustice with social consciousness.

In April 2016, the co-founders were arrested outside the U.S. capitol while taking part in a “Democracy Awakening” protest, a movement to "protect voting rights, get big money out of politics, and demand a fair hearing and an up or down vote on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee.”

Black Lives Matter protesters. Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images.

They’ve also made strides in ensuring that the farmers who help produce the ingredients in delightful flavors, like Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey, are treated fairly. And in January 2015, they committed to using fair-trade certified ingredients, such as sugar, coffee, and bananas.

Ben & Jerry’s has also been — and continues to be — a vocal proponent of LGBTQ rights. (In 1989, the ice cream company was the first major company in Vermont to offer health insurance to same-sex couples and employees’ domestic partners.)

In short, Ben and Jerry been awesome for a long time, and they show no signs of slowing down.

Their support of the Black Lives Matter movement is an example for companies like Air Academy Federal Credit Union, who dropped Denver Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall for peacefully protesting police brutality and injustice.

Instead of cowering to those who are uncomfortable with reality, Ben & Jerry’s is using its platform to amplify the voices of the unheard and ask that the status quo be changed.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

This matters because when major companies, celebrities, politicians, and other recognizable faces go against the grain and stand up against inequality, they become upstanders that can ultimately affect real, positive change in the communities that need it most.

Why? Because “All lives do matter. But all lives will not matter until Black lives matter.”

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