It was a supposedly strict line between the races. Another one I heard was “so you’re smoking menthols? I guess fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.”
Of course, the n-word not “Frenchmen” was used, and that was a still-recognizable 50-year old reference then.
My mother smoked menthols!
I used to know a guy who’s stated reason for smoking menthols was that only black guys would bum them off of him. White folks would usually move to the next smoker looking for a cigarette to bum. A good portion of the black folks would say “Hey, that’s my brand!”
Mom’s was Salem. (Dad smoked unfiltered Pall Mall in the red packet.)
Your house stunk.
I thought it was Don Cherry that made that kind of thing popular?
No, the “joke” is that Black people are tacky and have no taste. It’s the old meme that Black people can’t control themselves or their money and waste it on tacky stuff they think is nice.
There was an episide of “All in the Family” where Archie got a chance to try out for a prestigious bowling team. “They wear yellow shirts, and I look good in yellow”.
When he lost to a Black man (tied him actually, but pressure from other teams in the league forced the choice, putting Archie on the receiving end of racism) he bemoaned that the Black man would be wearing “my” shirt. Edith brightened: “Wow! He’ll look really good in yellow!”
There was a memorable moment in 48 Hours with Eddie Murphy & Nick Nolte where they get into Nolte’s old gaudy Cadillac convertible and Murphy gives him an earful about buying the last black-guy car on the lot.
I tried to find the clip on Youtube but couldn’t. It goes by quick and is pretty tone-deaf to modern sensibilities. It only works because that was 40 years ago now (!) and a legend like Murphy was the actor delivering it.
Come to think of it, that may be one reason I didn’t understand the joke. West Virginia had only integrated schools fairly recently, so the Black kids were on average more mature and better behaved than the rest of us, knowing they wouldn’t get any slack from the White teachers if they acted up.