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    Ball Don't Lie

    Ben & Jerry’s replaces fortune cookies in ‘Lin-Sanity’ flavor after controversy

    By Chris Chase | Ball Don't Lie – Sat, Feb 25, 2012 11:27 AM EST

    Ben & Jerry's will take fortune cookies out of its new Jeremy Lin-inspired ice cream flavor after hearing complaints that the ingredient was racist.

    The limited-edition flavor, "Taste the Lin-Sanity," originally featured vanilla frozen yogurt, honey swirls and bits of fortune cookies, the latter ingredient serving as an obvious nod to Lin's heritage. After the backlash, the company pulled the cookies from the mix and replaced them with waffle cone pieces that will be served on the side.

    "There seemed to be a bit of an initial backlash about it, but we obviously weren't looking to offend anybody and the majority of the feedback about it has been positive," Ryan Midden, the general manager of the Ben & Jerry's in Cambridge, Ma., told the Boston Globe.

    And that quote right there encapsulates the politically correct culture in which we live. Most people liked it, Midden said. But because a few people didn't, Ben & Jerry's caved.

    The company says the main reason for removing the fortune cookies was because they got soggy inside the batch. If you believe that, I have a bridge made of Cherry Garcia to sell you.

    The move comes days after the Asian American Journalists Association released media guidelines about how to cover Lin. "Is there a compelling reason to draw a connection between Lin and fortune cookies, takeout boxes or similar imagery?," they wrote. "In the majority of news coverage, the answer will be no."

    [Y! News: Asian American Journalists Association issues guidelines on Jeremy Lin coverage]

    Notice how the AAJA specifically mentions news coverage. There's never a compelling reason to run a graphic of Lin standing on a takeout box. But a tongue-in-cheek ice cream product being sold in Harvard Square is not news coverage.

    How else should they have honored him? He plays in the Big Apple, but apples aren't a good ice cream fruit. He played for the Harvard Crimson. That color doesn't go well with frozen yogurt. He grew up in Palo Alto, Calif., attending high school in the shadow of Stanford's football stadium. Adding bits of cardinal would have upset bird lovers.

    There's a difference between being color/race blind and completely ignoring a person's heritage. The über-PC police got all worked up about the inclusion of fortune cookies but surely their anger was misplaced. Lin's family is of Chinese descent. Fortune cookies are associated with Chinese food. A liberal ice-cream company no one ever associates with racism, hate or unfairness decided to have some fun with the connection. That's all.

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    Watch Full Count!
     
    • Micah S
      Micah S  •  Farmington, Michigan  •  2 months ago
      It's funny how people are offended for Jeremy Lin when Lin himself doesn't care.
      • Kimmie Stanton
        Kimmie Stanton 2 months ago
        he isn't the only one that racism effects, so he doesn't have to care for it to be offensive
      • TC
        TC 2 months ago
        That is true.
      • pdoff
        pdoff 2 months ago
        No, you just have to be an idiot to let an ingredient offend you...I bet if it had chocolate chunks, everyone would say it was offensive because it had nothing to do with his heritage/race/ethnicity etc.. People are a F'n joke these days.
    • REESE
      REESE  •  Chicago, Illinois  •  2 months ago
      Good grief........... this racist stuff is getting out of hand!
      • Jeremy
        Jeremy 2 months ago
        Absolutely! If fortune cookies are racist then so is the labeling of "Chinese" food restaurants.
      • orio
        orio 2 months ago
        What if they have watermelon & Coolaid flavor and call it Mayweather Punch? I bet NAACP would be crying.. Why can't people stop the stereotype Asian People?
      • tany
        tany 2 months ago
        definetely why people are so ignorant ,
    • Kenneth E
      Kenneth E  •  Russellville, Arkansas  •  2 months ago
      I will stop eating Kaiser rolls so as not to offend any Euro-Americans of German descent or German nationals.
      • MonkeyPoo
        MonkeyPoo 2 months ago
        You have to include pretzels and Beer too!
      • ALurker
        ALurker 2 months ago
        I'm going to stop eating pizza, so as not to offend any Italians, better include pasta too then :P
      • ya boy rc
        ya boy rc 2 months ago
        and u also stoped wearing a dirk nowitki jersey so you thought your were offending jews. and u decided u was not going to be a parent cuz whites are known as pedophiles? did u do those things too while u stoped eating kaiser rolls??? you do realize u cant live like this????
    • CrazyMadMan
      CrazyMadMan  •  Springfield, Illinois  •  2 months ago
      i'm chinese...and this is NOT racist. I hope they keep selling these I want to try some.
      • Ellen
        Ellen 2 months ago
        Thank you. I am so sick of this P C nonsense. Just another ploy to slowly erode our freedoms word by word. How about we get real and fight REAL racism?
      • Storm Shadow
        Storm Shadow 2 months ago
        So what, CrazyMadMan, you don't speak for all Asian-Americans. And don't turn around now and say, "Neither do you!" I'm not the one professing to do so.
      • KenshinD
        KenshinD 2 months ago
        im chinese too and I wanna try fortune cookies on an ice cream
    • Burlington
      Burlington  •  2 months ago
      If you think this is offensive, I feel sorry for you. You are going to live a pitiful, bitter life. woof.
      • Amy L
        Amy L 2 months ago
        Aww, Burlington's a cutie.
      • A Yahoo! User 2 months ago
        I'm already living a pitiful, bitter life.
      • Jah
        Jah 2 months ago
        Burlington, I'm offended that, as a dog, you spelled "Woof" with a lower case "w". Woof!
    • rasputin
      rasputin  •  2 months ago
      Could be worse, they could have made it yellow.
    • bobmarley
      bobmarley  •  Los Angeles, California  •  2 months ago
      In other news, I woke up at 9:39am today. Then I went back to sleep.
    • MaryG
      MaryG  •  Richmond Hill, Georgia  •  2 months ago
      Fortune cookies were invented in America.
    • Forrest Gump
      Forrest Gump  •  Shreveport, Louisiana  •  2 months ago
      I guess they need to pull their watermelon ice cream too...Give me a break.
    • Mike
      Mike  •  2 months ago
      I think this article was very well summed up in one area of the comment section. Miss Cheryl, a Chinese woman, commented on how she had not even found this ice cream to be offensive. Then Aaron, most likely a white American judging by name, told her how she was wrong and how it was actually offensive while using a legal system approach and comparing it to black stereotypes. So if the Chinese person is not even offended by the so called racism, then why the hell is the white person up in arms against this? The answer is the #$%$ weve all come to know and hate called Political Correctedness. Get the stick out of your butt people, life is short and wont be as fun if you dont laugh things off as often as possible
    • AmyF
      AmyF  •  Daytona Beach, Florida  •  2 months ago
      That's retarded... it's not like they added MSG.
    • Danko
      Danko  •  2 months ago
      OK now this PC crap is just going too far, I can see getting upset of over "Chink in the Armor" that was a ignorant and stupid comment, but to rip B&J's over a icecream ingrediant is just moronic. People need to get a clue when to far is too far.
    • Bigholycow
      Bigholycow  •  Taichung City, Taiwan  •  2 months ago
      "Fortune cookies are associated with Chinese food." Only in the US. It is a US invention and a US product only served in the US. Therefore, strictly speaking, fortune cookies are associated with Americanized Chinese takeout and restaurants. Whether that represents Jeremy Lin or not, we do not know without asking him.
    • sumar d
      sumar d  •  Boca Raton, Florida  •  2 months ago
      LIN WAS BORN IN AMERICA, HE IS AN AMERICAN
    • Tracy
      Tracy  •  2 months ago
      I understand people not wanting to be racist since Jeremy Lin is the only Asian in the NBA, but isn't this going a bit overboard? I mean, sure, it is fortune cookies, which is not really Chinese/Asian might I add, but who would be mad about having Ice Cream named after them? It's not really offensive, at least not in my point of view because there are so many other racist things said that are offensive.
    • ana2rosa2003
      ana2rosa2003  •  2 months ago
      Someone will always get offended, so just ban humor altogether. Future generations can learn about humor by reading about the outlawed concept in history books.
    • Lee
      Lee  •  2 months ago
      OMFG!!!!! SOMEBODY NEEDS TO STOP THE PC POLICE.
    • nathan
      nathan  •  Miami, Florida  •  2 months ago
      everything is racist!!! get over it nothing else to #$%$ about
    • kkrr
      kkrr  •  2 months ago
      Please assist my ignorance: Why is this offensive?
    • DENNIS
      DENNIS  •  Fort Stewart, Georgia  •  2 months ago
      hey america stop being a bunch of nit picking little #$%$ .....lets worry about things that actually carry some importance instead of this trivial crap ....grow up.
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