Offensive Ice cream

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http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nb...-MARNM3ylxViW4PR6MeSFDWGQ_5Ef2Rh4P0FMCaQE#_=_

(Sorry about the long link, if any one can shorten it the feel free!)

Basically, there's an Asian guy in America that plays a sport and he's done rather well lately. Ben & Jerry have created an ice cream to celebrate this and used pieces of fortune cookie to tie in with the fact that this bloke is Chinese (or whatever he is) and the PC mob have gone mental as usual

 

I think that people will find an excuse to complain about anything. What is wrong with celebrating his Asian heritage anyway. I'm sure he gave some kind of approval before the ice-cream flavor was distributed.

Ben & Jerry company were pretty lame to cave in so easily and remove the fortune cookie pieces because they 'got soggy'. If that is the only reason that they took them out then why didn't they put the fortune cookie pieces on the side rather than waffle cone pieces? Whatever - Ben & Jerry still wins with their free publicity.

 

That's actually kind of funny if you don't take life so seriously.*

Hell, Native Americans still have to suffer through being sports mascots here in the US (Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, Chicago Blackhawks, Kansas City Chiefs) and they're usually caricatured with goofy faces to boot.

*What I mean specifically is not the fortune cookie element itself, but the fact that someone's first thought for marketing an Asian man in an ice cream flavor was to refer to something so two-dimensionally 'Asian.'

 

How is inclusion of fortune cookie pieces racist? It's not like the whole "Chink in the Armor" quote from ESPN. That could be seen as racist as "Chink" can be considered a derogatory term in reference to those of Chinese decent. But a freaking fortune cookie? Puh-lease.

 

I don't really see why it was necessary to include fortune cookies JUST because the guy is Chinese. It's not a big deal though.

 

The argument can be made that the focus is on his being Asian-American - not on his being a great basketball player. To focus on that one aspect as his identifier is, frankly, kinda racist. Don't think so? Ask an Asian. It's cheap and it irritates most Asians, believe it or not, because Fortune Cookies are a distinctly American thing, yet most Americans assume they're a big part of Chinese culture. They're not.

I sincerely doubt anyone "flipped out." What is most likely is they got feedback - which they asked for when taste-testing the new flavor - from a large group, some of whom were Asian, and the Asians said "Fortune Cookies? Really? What the hell, man." And Ben and Jerry said "Oh." Being businessmen, obviously they're going to change that one ingredient. This is a specialty flavor meant to capitalize on Lin's flavor-of-the-month popularity. Insisting on including an ingredient that even a small contingent of Lin's fan base would be annoyed by is just plain stupid. If they'd included an ingredient Asians were proud of - basing it off of Green Tea ice cream and not vanilla would have been a better start - there would have been no issue.

Here's an idea: pretend that the notable thing about Jeremy Lin was that he was not Asian, but white and Jewish* - and Ben and Jerry included bagel pieces or matzo balls. Or that he was black,* and the recipe included watermelon seeds. Neither of which have anything to do with basketball, but are just superficial, stereotypical racial/cultural identifiers. Is it really being the PC police to acknowledge that those ingredients aren't going to be universally appreciated?


* comment that Ben & Jerry are famously jewish and that something like 80% of NBA players are black if you must, but it misses the point.

 

I have yet to understand why Lin' story is even a "story". We already had Yao, so the Asian Basketball player thing has been done. He's a Harvard grad, sp there is no "Rising up from poordom" story. And he has only been hot for a few weeks. Several sub-par players do this every year in the NBA.

So big fricking deal... the Knicks are still only a .500 basketball. And now that Melo is back, they wil start losing again as usual. Melo is very much a Bernard King type, there is no shot on the court that he hasn't taken.

 

But frankly, his race is a big part of the story. As is the fact that he graduated from Harvard, as is the fact that this is in New York, as is the fact that New York is a big basketball town, and the Knicks have sucked for a decade. If he was a white guy who graduated from Yale and played for Memphis, this wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal.

Actually, that's a great argument. Specifically because I think that a decent segment of Lin's fan base are Asian. At least a greater percentage than you'd see from the fan bases of most NBA stars.

I don't know... I don't think any ice cream ingredient is going to have anything to do with basketball, so naturally you're going to look at other stuff. I'm just trying to look at it objectively.

Would I think that adding bagel pieces, matzo balls, or watermelon seeds would taste particularly good in ice cream? Not really - I just can't see it. In fact, when eating watermelon, I make a point of not eating the seeds. I can't say I'm any sort of expert of matzo balls. I just don't think bagel pieces would work at all. But when I hear fortune cookies, I think... well maybe that would taste pretty good in ice cream.

All I'm saying is that, racist or not, his being Asian is a big part of the story. But I don't see adding crumbled up pieces of fortune cookies to the ice cream as racist in any way. Less so since fortune cookies aren't even a big part of Chinese culture - it's just the way things got Americanized. Hell we do that all the time. Pizza isn't Italian - it's an American invention. Neither is spaghetti and meatballs. (Well technically spaghetti is Italian and meatballs are Italian, it's just that the Italians never served them together. It's spaghetti and meatballs served together on the same plate that is the American contruct.) And no, if Lin was Italian, I wouldn't want pieces of meatballs in the ice cream either, but also because I don't think it would taste any good, not that I would be offended as an Italian American.

Yeah, but Yao was 7'2" tall, he was already a Chinese basketball sensation by the time he reached the NBA, with literally a billion fans overseas that voted him into every all-star game. There was nothing obscure about Yao and the time he entered the league. Lin came out of nowhere.

I think it should be pointed out that exactly 3 players have ever made an NBA roster after graduating from Harvard. I saw their names on ESPN a few days ago - I haven't heard of either of the other two. It is quite possible that in Lin's short career he already has accomplished more than any other Harvard grad has ever done in the NBA. It's not exactly like that Ivy Leagues are fertile ground for finding athletic talent.

Every Knick fan is thrilled that they are playing .500 basketball, as it's the first time they've been able to say that in over 10 years.

 

I agree that his being Asian is what is notable about his meteoric rise - never said it wasn't. But when creating a food item inspired by him, the "kicker" ingredient - the one notable piece that makes it unique and clever in referencing it's subject - will obviously be "what the artist sees," in this case, Ben & Jerry. And they thought fortune cookies communicated "Jeremy Lin." Perfectly understandable, but not very flattering to most Asians.

FFS. Of all the people here, I wouldn't have expected you to miss the forest for the trees on this point so wildy. This is NOG-level disconnect - no offense. OF COURSE watermelon seeds wouldn't taste good. I was making a point.

Again - this is because you are neither Asian nor do you appreciate how Asians feel about fortune cookies. Try to see it from their perspective.

Like I said - I get that they want to pay tribute to his Asian heritage. That is a big part of Lin's story. But they didn't start with something Asians consider a source of pride. They started with something of a mild irritation, but still - irritation nonetheless. Green Tea ice cream with waffle-cone pieces and a honey swirl would have gone over like gangbusters. Hell, I'd eat that right now.

And again - this is not "offensive" like the n-word is offensive to black people. This is merely irritating to Asian-Americans. No one is going to march on Washington over this, people. It was simply in BAD TASTE. Ben & Jerry were made aware of it, they didn't realize it, they obviously care more about making good, fun ice cream than in making a statement, so they CHANGED IT. End of story. It is rare in the West when an Asian becomes famous for something other than being a Kung-Fu master or a school-girl sex object. Lin represents something real and interesting, and has broken through in the popular culture like few ever get to. To turn around and celebrate him with something as cheap and stereotypical as a fortune cookie is insulting. You may as well ask him to put on a straw rice paddy hat and make you some egg rolls.

 

That's because Harvard doesn't give Athletic Scholarships, so of course there wouldn't be many Harvard players. That shouldn't be an astonishing phenomenon to anyone with a brain. Now, a 4'11 player or a One Armed player, that is a pheomenon. Lin is 6'3 and plays an ok handle. I watched the Knicks-Heat game, he is not all impressive and his skills set won't carry him an entire eason. Watching him on the court with a D-Wade and Lebron clearly shows he is not a superstar, but an average player at best.

 

OK - I'm trying - that's why I used the meatball example, because I am Italian.

Perhaps I just underestimated the irritation of the fortune cookie phenomenon among Asians. I mean, I don't get mad when people refer to pizza as Italian food - and my grandparents owned a freakin' Italian restaurant, which is probably the only reason I know this.

Or a rocket scientist, or mathematician, or robotics engineer.

Now if SNL did that in a B&J's spoof, I'd have laughed my ass off. Put a picture on the container with Lin in a straw rice paddy hat and a big smile on his face holding two egg rolls - or even better - fortune cookies. It would just be soooo over the top and out of line that you wouldn't be able to help it.

Well, all the talk is media driven. In the few interviews I've seen, the guy actually seems pretty humble. I think he feels more is being made of it than needs to be. I don't know if he necessarily needs to be a star - if he's the 3rd best player on the Knicks that's probably good enough.

 

Yeah, he interviewed very well I thought, came off as a regular Joe who just wants to play video games, basketball and have his family/friends left alone.

 

True - but EVERYONE loves pizza, even most Italians. The Asians I know - and due to my marriage, that's about half of my rather sizable social circle - consider fortune cookies cheap, sugary little sh*t-shingles they wouldn't even feed to their dogs.

Come on, you know what I mean. Famous in a hero-worship, pop-culture sense. Put a gun to the average American's head, and not 1 in 100 could tell you who Steven Chu is, nor would you ever see his face on a t-shirt.

 

OK. I obviously underestimated by a large margin the disdain Asians held for fortune cookies. Had I known that, I may have not been so against it in the beginning. I had no idea, which is why I was of the "no big deal" mindset.

I'm just trying to envision him on a T-shirt. You could get all the cabinet members and get the set... Chu, HRC, Geithner, Holder, Gates (actually I think he's gone now).... etc.

 

Is there a hero-worshipped Asian school-girl sex object out there? I'm not sure Mia Farrow's daughter qualifies ...

 

Asian-American disdain for fortune cookies depends on the context. In most cases, they simply don't care one way or the other. It's not a persistent symbol of derision the way black face on white performers is, for example. When it serves as a stand-in for Asian culture – as in "THIS is what you a-holes think of when you think of Asian cultural cues and contributions?" – that's when they get irritated.

 

Ben & Jerry's have form for this. I remember they brought out a Black and Tan ice cream for St Patrick's day a while ago. The only problem was that even though it's made with Guinness it's not a traditional drink in Ireland. The Black and Tans were the name though of a badly trained group of English WW1 veterans recruited to the police force during our War of Independence who were notorious for attacking innocent civilians and who burnt down most of Cork City. Now, like Death Rabbit said with the Asians, this is not something an Irish person would be outraged about. We're not talking about the Jews and the Holocaust here. But nobody bought the ice cream either which is a bit of a problem from Ben & Jerry's point of view. This latest incident really does make me wonder about them. At any stage before spending a fortune on R&D and marketing did it ever occur to somebody there to actually find somebody from their target market to ask them if this was a good idea or not? Presumably a company their size would have a couple of Asian employees.

 

Oh, FFS, it's ice cream, and it's a joke. There is zero evidence that there was or is any malice in it. People who get offended over stuff like this are just looking for something to get offended about. Talk about your mountain out if a molehill.

Heck, I have a great idea for a new Ben and Jerry's ice cream. It would be called Bountiful Beehive Brides, it'd be a honey flavored ice cream with a picture of a Mormon guy marrying 2 chicks (SLC temple in the background). They could use it to commemorate Mitt's nomination. I'd be about 5% offended and 95% amused.

The professional offendees need to get fricking lives.

 

I just cant see actual Asians being offended over this. It is so minor.

The thing is, I dont think this association implies anything negative about Lin or about Asian Americans. Its just an association. People need to get off their political correctness high horses.

Reminds me of the story of a UK school that wanted to put a production of the three little pigs on. But they changed it to the three little puppies because they were afraid that using pigs in a play would offend Muslims, who traditionally do not eat pork. The funny thing was, the newspaper asked the head of a local Muslim association what he thought, and he was as baffled as they were, saying that they dont eat pork but have nothing against pigs.

Thats what I bet happened here. Nobody thought to actual ask Asian people if they were offended. Political correctness devotees took it upon themselves to get offended and got it changed.