Ben & Jerry’s Apologizes for Jeremy Lin Inspired Ice Cream Flavor
and
Ben & Jerry's apologises for 'racist' Lin-sanity ice cream
Of course, Ben and Jerry have not owned Ben & Jerry's for some time now. The company is owned by Unilever, a British-Dutch corporation that is one of the largest in the world. It is a tribute to the B. and J. marketing team that we still associate the ice cream with a couple of corpulent flower children in Vermont. In fact, this marketing success hit its apex this past fall when B and J supported the Occupy Wall Street movement. The fact that Unilever [one of the so-called "1 percent"] was standing in support of those who were the self-proclaimed champions of the "99 percent" was an irony worthy of Tom Wolfe, Walt Kelly, or Alexander Pope. The fact that no one noticed this irony brings a certain splendor to it all.
However, what drew my attention to this story was how narrow racial sensitivity can sometimes be. Even at a gathering of clergy [the most morally superior class of human that has ever existed; really, just ask them] those of Asian, Eastern European, or American Indian [ahem] descent still can expect to hear jokes about driving ability, lack of intelligence, or the habit of building casinos in unlikely places. Often, those who think themselves the most elevated are the most guilty of this passive form of racial dismissal.
Oh, well. At least casino jokes are preferable to those about rain dances or Tonto's penchant to be sent into small Western towns by the Lone Ranger in order to get beat up.