I recently heard my son, Dr Vinash Deyalsingh, advising his patients to consume water-rich fruits such as the watermelon during this period of intense heat.
Long before it became a familiar fruit around the world, the Indigenous African communities in the Kalahari region used the fruit as a source of moisture and nourishment, particularly in environments where access to water was scarce.
Even Dioscorides, a Greek physician of the 1st century CE, recommended using watermelon (pepon) to treat heatstroke.
The watermelon therefore has an ancient association with survival, nourishment and hydration. Yet, remarkably, this life-giving fruit has become embroiled in racial stereotyping and political symbolism.
In the US, watermelon became deeply entangled with racism after emancipation. African Americans grew and sold the fruit as a source of independent income, and for many newly freed people it represented economic opportunity, self-reliance and a symbol of newfound freedom.
But that image of self-sufficiency threatened the racial hierarchy of the time.
Racist elements sought to turn that image of black independence into humiliation. Through cartoons, postcards, advertisements and minstrel imagery, black Americans were depicted as lazy, uncivilised and obsessed with watermelon, often shown greedily and messily consuming it, reinforcing the idea that they were incapable of discipline, ambition or productive work. The Library of Congress showcases examples of such racial caricatures.
Thus, a crop associated with black enterprise was transformed into a symbol of racial mockery. Cultural symbols have immense power to shape how societies see people. Through repetition, racist imagery can turn something associated with freedom and self-sufficiency into something designed to demean. The watermelon stereotype became part of a broader system of racial representation that ridiculed black freedom and undermined black economic independence.
There is a particularly striking historical irony: watermelon originated in Africa, and its seeds were carried across the Atlantic by enslaved Africans, helping establish the crop in the Americas. After emancipation, African Americans cultivated and sold watermelons as a source of income and self-reliance. Yet, that very image of black enterprise and freedom became entangled in the racist stereotypes that followed.
The watermelon would later acquire another powerful political meaning, this time in relation to Palestine. Because its red flesh, green exterior and black and white elements correspond to the colours of the Palestinian flag, the watermelon has become a symbol associated with Palestinian identity and solidarity. Its use as a political symbol became particularly significant during periods when displaying the Palestinian flag was banned, restricted or politically contentious.
Thus, the same fruit that once became the subject of racist imagery in America later became a symbol of national and political identity elsewhere.
And now the watermelon has entered another political conversation.
In Britain, the term “watermelon” was recently used by critics to describe some environmentalists and Green Party figures as being “green on the outside and red on the inside”—suggesting their environmental concerns conceal or accompany socialist political beliefs.
On September 23, 2026, The Guardian published an article titled “‘Watermelons’: Zack Polanski and the rise of the ‘green outside, red inside’ eco-populists.”
This article carries a political message to the United Kingdom voters that the Green Party of England and Wales, headed by Polanski, should not merely be seen as having an environmental agenda but a socialist political ideological underbelly.
The metaphor is intended as a political criticism, but once again the watermelon has found itself carrying a meaning that has little to do with the fruit itself.
There is something almost extraordinary about this journey.
A fruit that evolved in Africa and helped people survive in hot, dry environments has been transformed, in different historical periods and societies, into a racial stereotype, a symbol of Palestinian identity and a metaphor for political ideology.
The story of the watermelon is ultimately a reminder of how human beings attach meanings to ordinary objects.
A fruit can become a symbol of freedom, a target of racism, an expression of national identity or a political metaphor—depending on the historical moment.
But perhaps there is something refreshing about returning to its simplest meaning.
In a world increasingly divided by race, politics and ideology, the watermelon does not care about any of them. It simply provides water, nourishment and, on a hot day, a little relief.
And perhaps that is the most positive meaning we can give it.
