If you live in Boston, you may have heard some version of this story, in which the Ben & Jerry's franchise at Harvard Square decided to make a flavor for Jeremy Lin, apparently couldn't remember anything about Jeremy Lin other than that he's Chinese-American, and decided to mix lychee and fortune cookie pieces in with plain vanilla FroYo. The initial test batch received complaints that the fortune cookie pieces were soggy, and some sort of "initial backlash" that has not been reported on in detail anywhere, meaning that it could have ranged anywhere from someone throwing a giant fit and threatening to sue, to a few people giving it a side-eye or eyerolls or disdainful glances down the nose, or any number of critical comments in between. As sometimes happens when a new product is introduced and is doing an initial run at only one location, the store responded to its customers' comments by tweaking their product--in this case, replacing the soggy fortune cookie pieces with waffle cone.
Whether or not you live in Boston, by this time, you may have heard the version of this story that goes "THE PC POLICE BULLIED BEN AND JERRY'S (THE ENTIRE CORPORATION) INTO RUINING A PERFECTLY DELICIOUS FLAVOR FOR NO REASON AT ALL EXCEPT THAT THEY HATE FUN AND DELICIOUSNESS, AND ETHNIC STEREOTYPING IS TOTALLY NOT RACIST AT ALL AND YOU ARE JUST LOOKING FOR THINGS TO GET OFFENDED ABOUT AND MAKING A BIG DEAL OUT OF NOTHING, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY THE ONLY OPTIONS ARE 'BIG DEAL' AND 'NO DEAL AT ALL', AND THE ONLY LEVELS OF PROBLEMS ARE 'NOTHING' AND 'KKK RALLY,' BECAUSE NOBODY WOULD EVER MAKE MILDLY CRITICAL COMMENTS ABOUT SOMETHING MILDLY RACIST, LET ALONE RESPOND TO THEM, BECAUSE MIDDLING LEVELS OF THINGS DON'T EXIST IN MY SIMPLIFIED WORLDVIEW."
Duuuuuuuuuuuudes. If Ben & Jerry's does not want to be even a little bit questionably racist, they are perfectly allowed to realize when they are being a little bit questionably racist by accident and quietly knock it off. You do not have to have massively and irredeemably pissed off every single Chinese person ever so badly that they'll never talk to you again in order to decide that maybe you should not always keep doing exactly what you're doing.
The original flavor may not have been particularly malicious, but it was definitely the sort of thing where you can, in the manner of Yo, Is This Racist?, imagine the creative session where this was greenlit:
"We have to make a flavor for Jeremy Lin!"
"Who's Jeremy Lin?"
"A famous Chinese dude."
"What Chinese foods would work in ice cream?"
"Er... lychee?"
"Good! What else?"
"Fortune cookies?"
"Excellent! Throw it in the FroYo and put it in a carton."
~FIN~
Is this malicious and motivated by intense hatred of Chinese people? No. Do you know what it is? LAZY. Way motherfucking lazy. It's lazy, half-assed, lazy, ill-thought-out, lazy, slapdash, and lazy. Do you know what you call it when you get as far as someone's ethnicity and are then too lazy to continue putting in thought or effort into what you're doing?
motha fuckin RACISM
The fact that they didn't seem to actually test whether the foods they're putting together ACTUALLY went well together or just sounded good also highlights how little thought went into the whole process, which does make the whole thing come off as more racist than if the product had turned out actually meet the same level of quality we expect from Ben & Jerry's. And it makes it particularly irritating that one of the more frequent responses I've heard to this is a sort of knee-jerk "That sounds delicious!" Yeah, it does sound delicious, off the bat; this is likely part of why they decided to put in the ice cream instead of, like, sweet and sour sauce. However, it would appear that it did not turn out to actually be all that delicious in actuality (and if they'd given it a second thought instead of moving right from "sounds good off the bat" to "serve it to people in actuality," it might have occurred to someone that fortune cookies are an extremely porous baked good and get soggy if you look at them sadly, and that ice cream starts to melt immediately at the temperatures you generally eat it). Businesses do not survive by refusing to fix problems with their products and digging their heels in going "Nuh uh, it totally SOUNDS fine, so it IS fine."
Also, even if you still think that something being lazy and stupid in regards to race is totally not the same thing as being racist, because it's not mean, it's just lazy and stupid, guess what: Lazy and stupid are not virtues. You should not strive for them. You should not be focused on how much lazy and stupid you can get away with before it becomes racist/sexist/whatever; you should be trying to be as not-lazy and not-stupid as you can be, and if someone points out that something you're doing is lazy and stupid, that is also a valid criticism and you should respond to it, even if it's got nothing to do with racism whatsoever. And while lazy shit might fly in some spaces, I see absolutely no idea why Harvard Square should be expected to be one of them. It's Harvard Square. Boston as a city is packed solid with more higher education than any one city should be expected to support, and Harvard is supposedly the most prestigious, elite private college in the country. I would be completely unsurprised if the most common form of negative feedback on the flavor was that it was so boring and obvious. Because that is the thing about stereotypes--in addition to being offensive, they are tedious. Tediousness is also a bad thing that people are allowed to not like, and to refrain from showering you with compliments on your cleverness for, and even to complain about, if they think listening to themselves complain will at least be more interesting.
None of this shit makes anybody the mythical PC police. But the anti-PC police are out in full force, Yahoo Sports being one of he worst offenders (sorry, not linking). Sadly, this includes Voltaire, who I follow on Facebook in order to keep up on wacky, dark, and whimsical things, but who, it appears, is still a middle-aged white guy. (How's that for not being PC?) Apparently, some people think that if they are not allowed to rely on boring-ass stereotypes, they will have nothing to say, because actually thinking about what you're saying and trying to come up with original and accurate ways to express your ideas (not to mention coming up with your own damn ideas) is the antithesis of creativity.
Some people are "tired of PC culture". Do you know what I'm tired of? White guys complaining about how totally oversensitive everyone else is. I am tired of anti-PC culture, like being expected to think about what you say or do or what words mean before you open you mouth is just so hard, those women and minorities and immigrants and people with disabilities just don't know how hard it is. I am tired of people who think that any action you take to be a little more considerate of other people, no matter how small, means that you are "caving" and "making a big deal" (again: small deals. They exist. If you do not understand this, you should withdraw from having opinions until you develop the ability to think with nuance) and blah blah blah. I am tired of listening to people go on long 'splainy rants about how that wasn't really racist or sexist or homophobic, they didn't mean "gay" like that, etc. I am tired of people claiming that supporting the status quo and being racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, and basically disrespectful of other people is now the brave, embattled, noble minority position. I am tired of being very, very, very, seriously and painfully aware that most of the people I know are assholes, most of the people I have ever been friends with or loved are assholes, most of my family is assholes, most artists whose work I have admired are assholes, and that realizing this makes me more like them--smug and self-congratulatory about how much better I am than everybody else.
I am tired of assholes who think that intent is fucking magic and I am tired of striking the terrible bargain and I am tired of being tired of people.
I am twenty-four years old and I am already thoroughly sick of this shit. |
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agentclaudia's journal
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