Peanut Racism

Myth:  George Washington Carver, the brilliant and humble African-American scientist, botanist and educator, was born into slavery in Missouri in 1864, just shy of abolition.  After many dangerous escapes, Carver became free near the end of the Civil War.  An inherently talented individual, Carver gravitated toward science as a means to aid in the reconstruction of the South that lay in ruins.  Though he is most notably remembered for the invention of peanut butter – a substance that had already existed for centuries – he was a man who invented such things ranging from instant coffee to necessary dyes to buttermilk.  More importantly, Carver was an avid humanitarian concerned with the well being of poor farmers, both black and white, who attempted to rebuild their lives during the atrocities of Reconstruction.  An inductee into the Royal Academy of Arts & Sciences in London and member of the famed Tuskegee Academy, he was a true renaissance man, nicknamed the “Black Leonardo da Vinci” in 1941.

Fact:  It is hard fact that Carver was a brilliant botanist and overall extraordinary human being, but his work with peanuts he was so famous for, was but a sick and twisted backlash from bitter whites living in the destitute conditions following the American Civil War.  Carver did introduce various other crops as a way to replenish the land from the effects of the incessant planting of cotton, but peanuts were certainly not on his list.  He had been born with a severe peanut allergy, an affliction that came to light while eating at a Waffle House when he was only six years old.  He had ordered his hash browns “smothered” and “covered,” but somehow the order had become “peanuted,” and he found himself in the hospital some thirty minutes later.  Years later, some Ole Miss graduates had discovered Washington’s nasty affliction.  Since they were mere Communications majors*, the Southern job market at the time offered no chances for life improvement, so they directed their bitterness on the black population – notoriously so on the nerdy Carver.  It must be stressed that many of the racist attacks during Reconstruction were executed by white men with degrees ranging from Communications to Geography to Business Administration.  Carver vividly noted the first account with these good ol’ boys in his memoirs:  “I was walking in downtown Jackson, carrying a textbook on Advanced Botany when I noticed three white boys approaching me.  One was carrying a thin book with the title Mass Communication During the 20^th Century scribbled poorly across the front.  ‘You think you smarter than us or somethin’, boy,’ one had barked rudely.  I simply replied ‘Yes.’  This sent them into a rage, but after a few moments one of them wryly smiled and said, ‘Heard you ain’t got the stomach for the ‘nut…every man got the stomach for the ‘nut…well, we gonna make you get the stomach for the ‘nut.’  I said they might reconsider their choice of words, but that only angered them further.”  Carver was subjected to the tortures of working with peanuts because of these three cowards, and his name would be invariably linked with the legume he so despised.  All in all, Carver came out only somewhat tainted, but those were times of chaos and he accepted it.  In a twist of irony, Carver later found out that all three men had died some years later after their peanut bullying due to overindulgence in milk – good ol’ fashioned white milk.  They were all severely lactose intolerant.

*Apologies to anyone with a degree in Communications – namely my girlfriend, Jenny Smith.