"Taste the Lin-Sanity"

Jeremy Lin is not only a star on the basketball court but he is becoming a popular ice cream flavor as well. Ben and Jerry's is in the process of releasing a limited edition ice cream flavor, "Taste the Lin-Sanity." The original flavor was vanilla frozen yogurt with honey swirls and pieces of fortune cookies mixed in. But as you probably guessed, the fortune cookie ingredient was met with some grief. Apparently, many people complained to Ben and Jerry's saying that it was racist to include fortune cookies in the ice cream because of Lin's Chinese heritage. Even though Lin himself has not commented about the ice cream flavor, the Asian American Journalist Association felt that they could speak for Lin's personal opinion. They said, Is there a compelling reason to draw a connection between Lin and fortune cookies, takeout boxes or similar imagery? In the majority of news coverage, the answer will be no." One of Ben and Jerry's general manager, Ryan Midden released a statement saying, "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." Even though there was more praise than complaints, Ben and Jerry's was forced to change the fortune cookie ingredient, they are now using waffle bits instead. 

Author Chris Chase is definitely on Ben and Jerry's side of the controversy. He feels that it is ridiculous to be complaining about an ice cream flavor that is honoring an outstanding athlete. After describing the ice cream flavor and the change in ingredients, Chase included Ben and Jerry's reasoning for switching out the fortune cookies for waffle bits, 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." Chase used a lot of ethos in this article because he included his personal opinion multiple times. He ended his article by saying, 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." I agree with Chase and Ben and Jerry's on this ridiculous case of ice cream controversy. I think that Ben and Jerry's truly did not mean any harm by making this ice cream flavor, they were just trying to have some fun.

Ben & Jerry’s replaces fortune cookies in ‘Lin-Sanity’ flavor after controversy by Chris Chase
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/ben-jerry-replaces-fortune-cookies-lin-sanity-flavor-162728739.html