Reposted from @jkanizzle Oh man there was nothing better than summertime as a kid. Long days with no school that never seemed to end, jumping through sprinklers with your friends on hot days, and riding your bike around the neighborhood laughing until the sun went down. Oh and that sound in the distance? The best thing ever! You hear it? The best song ever! The ice cream truck is coming!!!!! Every single kid in the neighborhood would gather around for orange dreams, rocket pop’s, or a strawberry sundae crunch bar! Isn’t it funny how these beloved childhood memories can have a dark racist past? Funny….haha…. The ‘ice cream truck song’, or ‘Do Your Ears Hang Low’, was initially a fiddle song known as ‘The Rose Tree’, and was brought to this country 300 years ago by immigrants from Scotland and Ireland. Ahhhh, but in 1820 the tune got rebranded ‘Zip Coon’, a lovely song about a black character who found freedom and tried to integrate into white society with “fancy clothing and big words”. Within a few years it was the most popular song in the country. And 100 years later it became a hit again, with new lyrics, called “N***er Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!”....which was released by Columbia Records. Yes, the same Columbia Records Beyonce is on. So yeah, when Amerikkka started getting into ice cream parlors (which of course were segregated because white power) they played music to keep things light and bubbly, as you do...and an instrumental version of ‘Zip Coon’ was one of these songs. Which leads us to today, and your friendly neighborhood ice cream truck. Actually, the thing that leads us to today….is the fact that for the last several nights, after protests in majority black neighborhoods in NYC, the NYPD has been driving around in the middle of the night playing this song from their cars. Showing just how racist they are to the rest of the world. - - - #amerikkkanhistoryx #blm #blacklivesmatter #zipcoon #racistpigs - #regrann https://www.instagram.com/p/CBkRzqphCS3/?igshid=yf0a2jmg4nd1
