What's in a Watermelon?

A small controversy erupted in Lowell House last week, when house resident Mellody R. Hayes '99 issued a complaint about a poster hanging in the serving area of her dining hall. Hayes and some members of the dining hall staff found the poster, which depicts several black figures carrying watermelon and other fruit above their heads, offensive. "The poster was racist," Hayes said. "It was building on stereotypes of black people enjoying watermelon."

Although the poster in question had been hanging in Lowell House for at least four years, its placement was inconspicuous and the students and tutors I spoke with said they barely ever noticed it. But when people began to complain, the poster was immediately replaced with an innocuous watercolor. As Lowell House Master William H. Bossert '59 explained to me, there was no need to have a poster that offended somebody hanging in the dining hall, especially one without any monetary value.

Lowell House's removal of the poster was certainly a sensitive response, and arguably the right one because, perhaps, the context in which the print was displayed was inappropriate. But it is more difficult to argue, as Hayes and others do, that the poster's content is racist, particularly without considering the identity of the artist.

The dining hall manager would not allow me to see the poster without proper authorization from the Assistant Director for House Dining, who was unlisted. Why, despite the fact that the print had been hanging in the dining hall every day for the last few years, has it now become a source of worry for those involved?

I wonder how Fritzner Alphonse, the artist who painted the original of which the Lowell House poster is a print, would feel that his work is now "off-limits." Who is Fritzner? It turns out that he is a Haitian folk artist who was born on July 18, 1938 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He was leather tanner, like his father before him, until 1972, when at the age of 34 he painted his first tableau. He has been an artist ever since. Fritzner is part of a generation of Haitian artists to be influenced by the Centre d' Arte, which was founded in 1944. As The Art of Haiti webpage explains, the founders of the Centre d'Arte" were completely artistically untrained....Their subjects were most often what they perceived in their everyday mundane existence....They managed to integrate what they saw, felt and believed and express it with intensity of emotion and a childlike innocence."

Fritzner's background is an important factor in this controversy. Can one argue that the poster is racist, if the artist was depicting scenes from his own life in Haiti? Though it is more likely that Fritzner's work is honest and meaningful rather than a portrayal of blacks as watermelon-eaters, given the loaded image of this poster and the stereotype it evokes of Southern blacks, the Lowell House dining hall may be an inappropriate place to hang it, particularly because it was purchased by the former dining hall manager as a nice piece of decoration. Nonetheless, these issues are debatable. Political correctness is somewhat on the wane, but we are still hypersensitive to offending people. So the instant a student charges that the poster hanging in her dining hall is "racist," it is immediately removed--without discussion or an examination of the relevant context.

It is possible that Fritzner's print was hanging in an inappropriate location, that it belongs in a museum rather than next to steaming tray of General Wong's Chicken. But this is not an obvious conclusion; so before the poster is branded "racist" and permanently removed from the dining hall, the issues should be debated. In what ways can this print be read? Was Lowell House too hasty in its decision to remove the poster? Would a plaque providing information about the artist and his history be enough to allay fears of racism? And the crux of the matter, is Lowell House the appropriate place for potentially offensive Haitian folk art to be hanging?

Perhaps the print of Fritzner's painting should have been removed long ago because a five dollar poster among the many valuable portraits of dead white men that adorn the Lowell House dining Hall is out of place. But the issue of appropriateness never had the chance to come up, because the print was removed too quickly. Fritzner Alphonse and those who appreciate his art deserve a fair hearing.

It is a sad day when the fear of offending someone causes us to sanitize our surroundings, to eliminate from the context of our daily lives art that forces us to consider sensitive issues. Racism comes in many forms, including art, but with the accusation of racism comes the responsibility of substantiation and discussion--both of which are conspicuously absent in this case.

Daniel M. Suleiman '99 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.