Jim Thrasher and his wife were enjoying the California State Fair this weekend until they came upon the Colusa County exhibit.
For the African American couple from Sacramento, the exhibit's depiction of "Waldo Watermelon Seed" conjured up painful images of the Jim Crow era.
The cartoon-like character was "the standard caricature you'd see from the old days, 50, 60, 70 years ago – black face, buckteeth, bug eyes holding a watermelon," said Thrasher, 58.
"It brought back memories of my childhood in Ohio where the Klan still marched, when racism was overt, all the name-calling I and my family had to endure," Thrasher said. "Those kinds of characters were very common, and I'd like to see some sensitivity on the part of the county administration to do something about it."
After The Bee's inquiries, Colusa County representatives took down the image Wednesday. "They don't want to offend anybody and will modify the exhibit," said Brooke Converse, a fair spokeswoman.
Fair General Manager Norb Bartosik said the display, created by several teens at Colusa High, was intended to reflect the county's production of melons, pumpkins and watermelons. Bartosik said he had received no complaints.
A team of seven judges previewed the county exhibits before the fair opened and didn't find Colusa's entry offensive, Bartosik said. None of the judges was African American.
The fair has a Cultural Advisory Council that includes African Americans, but Converse didn't know if any had seen the exhibit. She said there is no formal approval process for county exhibits.
According to University of California, Davis, professor Patricia Turner – a leading national authority on African American images – such caricatures are likely to have a different impact on blacks who lived through the civil rights era.
The Jim Crow caricatures "harken back for many people – particularly the older generation – to the period when there were only derogatory images of African Americans," she said.
Turner, who teaches African and African American Studies, authored "Ceramic Uncles and Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture."
Whether intended or not, the melon-eating caricature in the Colusa exhibit is reminiscent of early 20th-century images that include "the large, toothy smile, garish green pants and white minstrel gloves," Turner said.
The images in advertisements of blacks eating watermelon with their hands "connotes a kind of savagery," she said. Turner, 53, remembers African Americans eating watermelon with forks in public to combat that notion.
Turner said she and her family had toured the county exhibits Sunday and didn't notice "Waldo Watermelon Seed."
She said she understands how "a young person oblivious to the history of all of this could have constructed the State Fair icon innocently."
Call The Bee's Stephen Magagnini, (916) 321-1072.
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