--- description: Handler's remarks "came from a place of ignorance," Woodson says title: Jacqueline Woodson Responds to Racist Watermelon Joke image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Books](/tag/books/) ## Books Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Jacqueline Woodson Responds to Racist Watermelon Joke by [Sam Frizell](/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Nov 29, 2014 5:01 PM CUT by [Sam Frizell](/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Nov 29, 2014 5:01 PM CUT Jacqueline Woodson, the National Book Award winner for the young adult memoir _Brown Girl Dreaming,_ addressed in a recent [op-ed the racist watermelon joke made by her author friend Daniel Handler](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/29/opinion/the-pain-of-the-watermelon-joke.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region "undefined"), two weeks ago. Woodson, who is black, recalls in the New York _Times_ piece how she grew up eating watermelon during summers in her southern childhood, and writes about her subsequent revulsion to the fruit—perhaps because of the watermelon’s loaded and race-ridden history. --- > “” --- Woodson says that her friend Handler’s joke at the National Book Awards, in which he racially poked fun at Woodson’s allergy to watermelon, “came from a place of ignorance” and “showed that he believed we were at a point where we could laugh about it all.” Handler, who is the author behind Lemony Snicket of the _Series of Unfortunate Events_, [has apologized for his joke](http://time.com/3601099/daniel-handler-lemony-snicket-racist-remark/ "undefined") and has since helped raise tens of thousands of dollars to help diversify children’s literature. [You can read Woodson’s full column here](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/29/opinion/the-pain-of-the-watermelon-joke.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region "undefined"). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3610303/jacqueline-woodson-watermelon-racist-joke-lemony-snicket-daniel-handler-national-book-awards/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3610303/jacqueline-woodson-watermelon-racist-joke-lemony-snicket-daniel-handler-national-book-awards/"},"headline":"Jacqueline Woodson Responds to Racist Watermelon Joke","datePublished":"2014-11-29T17:01:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T02:26:54.650Z","description":"Handler's remarks \"came from a place of ignorance,\" the National Book Award winner says","url":"https://time.com/3610303/jacqueline-woodson-watermelon-racist-joke-lemony-snicket-daniel-handler-national-book-awards/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3610303/jacqueline-woodson-watermelon-racist-joke-lemony-snicket-daniel-handler-national-book-awards/","name":"Jacqueline Woodson Responds to Racist Watermelon Joke"}}]}] ```