jorb wrote:Believe it or not, but I do not stay updated on the latest patch notes and
causes du jour of American liberalism.

And you are also fortunate enough to not have Boris Johnson in your country! (2002 'picaninnies with watermelon smiles' quote also referenced in the wikipedia page you just looked at; it got brought up quite a bit in national news here when he ended up in increasing senior political jobs).
Personally I think watermelons are a bit silly on account of it being really difficult to grow them, as you already said, further north than Spain and Italy (source: my family has successfully grown them at 50°N, it wasn't easy), but I also accept that it might be nice from a system perspective to have something else that works the same way as pumpkins. But anyway, now you know about the racism, please don't make a watermelon hat.