A probationary Detroit firefighter who was terminated for delivering an enormous watermelon wrapped in a pink bow to a predominately black fire station as “a welcome gift” has filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming he was fired because he is white.

The lawsuit by former firefighter Robert Pattison claims he was racially discriminated against because the Detroit Fire Department “would never have discharged a black employee for gifting a watermelon.”

Pattison, who has a checkered employment past, made national headlines when the department fired him on Oct. 5, declaring the watermelon “was deemed offensive and racially insensitive.” Even most of Detroit’s white firefighters defended the firing, and the firefighters’ union declined to take up Pattison’s case.

Watermelons have been used since the 1860s to denigrate black people, who were portrayed in caricatures as impish, lazy, unclean and mindless buffoons. In the 20th century, the vile depictions of African Americans, often with oversized, blood-red lips, raggedy clothes and very dark skin, showed up on postcards, ashtrays, cookie jars, board games, souvenirs and during minstrel shows. When Obama was elected president, photoshopped images of watermelon patches on the lawn of the White House became popular memes, and a Boston Herald cartoonist illustrated the commander in chief brushing his teeth while a man in the bathtub asks, “Have you tried the new watermelon flavored toothpaste?”