GREENFIELD — A billboard promoting the Summer Eats program was removed this week after community members raised concerns that it depicted a racist stereotype.
The billboard, which was located outside CVS on Federal Street, featured a young Black girl eating a slice of watermelon — a racist stereotype stemming from the Jim Crow era, during which the fruit became a symbol of poverty.
When contacted by a reporter Monday afternoon, Superintendent Christine DeBarge said she had not personally seen the billboard, nor had she received complaints from the community. Still, Debarge said she planned to follow up immediately.
“Our goal with this program sponsored by Project Bread was to represent our entire diverse community with images of students outside, having fun and enjoying healthy food,” DeBarge said in a subsequent email statement. “In the process of developing the ads with the billboard company, the company supplied us with stock imagery of students enjoying summer foods, which were all used in our advertisements. The images aimed to represent the diversity in the Greenfield community.”
At the request of the Greenfield School Department, the billboard company removed the advertisement. By Tuesday afternoon, it had been replaced with an ad for the American Humane Society.
“We apologize for the lack of sensitivity in this situation and we are working to improve our awareness,” DeBarge said.
The billboard was a topic of discussion on the Recorder’s opinion page, with Greenfield resident Kathleen Billus writing she was “freaked out” when she first saw it.
“Why do the people of color in our community have to look at this billboard on busy Federal Street?” Billus wrote. “Why do I have to look at it? It’s insulting.”
At the Franklin County Community Development Corporation, Traci Talbert, who serves as racial justice and community engagement leader, said her boss brought the billboard to her attention. She said it stimulated conversations within Welcome and Belonging Franklin County, a group of local leaders that aims to address racial equity and inclusion in workplaces and the wider community.
“It brought up concerns about who’s at the table before decisions are made,” she said. “What role did the white dominant culture play, as far as the decision-making?”
She had questions, too, as to whether the parent of the child in the photo knew how that image might be used in marketing materials.
“Seeing it made me frustrated,” Talbert said, describing the billboard as both harmful and sad. “It was insulting on many levels.”
Post-emancipation, many African Americans grew and sold watermelons. What began as a symbol of self-sufficiency, however, turned into a racist stereotype when white people turned the fruit, instead, into a symbol of poverty.
Talbert added that the pizza emojis elsewhere on the billboard — a food that Talbert said she associated with “luxury” in her youth — also drew on stereotypes of poverty.
“The well-intentions of white people, again, can come across as offensive, because they’re not doing background research,” Talbert said. “It comes across as a paternalistic and universal approach rather than looking at the individual silos in the community to figure out what each group and culture may need.”
Talbert was impressed to hear the billboard was promptly taken down once concerns were brought to the administration.
“They took it to heart, noticed that it could be offensive to many groups and said let’s take it down, learn how it got up there and what we can do better and different the next time we want to publish a communal message for providing support for those who are in need,” she said.
Talbert added that she was glad to know conversations are being had now.
“We’re addressing it in the moment,” she said. “Those are the opportunities that are going to … impact a real change when we talk about disrupting and dismantling components of inequality and harmfulness that people kind of take for granted on a day-to-day basis.”
Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne.