Jeremy Lin (merged threads)

[Roy H.]

Let's end the "your country is more racist than mine" discussion now.  I'm not sure how it's remotely helpful to defend political correctness in this country by broadly stereotyping entire countries and continents.  Regardless, the discussion is over.  Move on.

[Eja117]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/ben-jerry-replaces-fortune-cookies-lin-sanity-flavor-162728739.html

Ok. Noooowwww we're a little overboard. I would have loved to eat some fortune cookie based ice cream. darn it.

Poor Lin. The kid is due to wake up any second now in his Harvard dorm room. Granted I don't know where that leaves me but this is nuts

I don't know, don't you think the fortunes would get all soggy anyhow. 

That's a good point. I sense an ice cream experiment coming

[Eja117]

This is kinda embarrassing, but I think someone may have to explain the graham cracker thing to me. But I'm a little afraid to ask.

Is there some sort of New York graham cracker connection? Harvard?  Cause I can see a scenario where that seems wwwaaayyyy worse.  He's technically a San Franciscan.

[OmarSekou]

It would be one thing if companies were getting Lin's approval before doing this stuff, but they're just stereotyping and profiting off him.

As far as the Ben and Jerry's, it's not that one specific thing, but the combination of all the little things that makes it racist. What generally happens when you are a minority is that you are a minority first, and then an American. Jeremy Lin has been typecast to fit the stereotypical role of everything Asian. The fact that those stereotypes exist and are acceptable is what makes it racism.

The difference between that and Homer Simpson is I don't think white Americans go around going "that's exactly how white people act." They know it's a caricature. With minorities, the line gets blurred on what people believe.  For someone at Ben & Jerry's to go "he's Asian...fortune cookies!" is a sign of ignorance about who Jeremy Lin is and who Taiwanese people are.

For all of the attention he's received I know nothing about how Jeremy Lin defines himself or his background, and journey. He's been thrown in the limelight and appears to be doing everything to remain humble and focused.

[Eja117]

I am by no means an expert in race relations but I guess I have to ask myself if all racism is created equal and I guess for whatever reason it's not

Toinesanity watermellon and chicken ice cream

Vinny Testaverde spaghetti gelato

Bernie Kosar Holy Knish Ice Cream

Troy Murphy potato and corned beef fro yo....mmmmmm

Lisanity fortune cookie ice cream

AK47 vodka vanilla ice cream

The most important question of course is "How good of ice cream are we talking" but then I have to rank it a little by how much it hurts people

1 is just totally unacceptable.  I can't say about the others.

Honestly, sometimes I think racism is a luxury. Other countries have no food and would eat this in a heartbeat - well - you know what I mean

But we're arguing over food names

It occurs to me that in racism intent matters. I think that chink in the armor thing was meant to raise eyebrows at his expense. I think this ice cream was to celebrate him.

Linsanity. I have never seen anything like it. I had immediately seen the Ben and Jerry's thing as a celebration as Ben and J have a well known rep of being peace loving hippies, but oh well

[TitleMaster]

This is kinda embarrassing, but I think someone may have to explain the graham cracker thing to me. But I'm a little afraid to ask.

Is there some sort of New York graham cracker connection? Harvard?  Cause I can see a scenario where that seems wwwaaayyyy worse.  He's technically a San Franciscan.

Here's a good recipe ...

http://donna-diegel.suite101.com/cherry-cheesecake-recipe-graham-cracker-crust-a79126

It really puts a nice closure on a good cheesecake concoction. And I'm pretty sure it's something everyone would appreciate.

[Eja117]

I might die laughing if Jeremy Lin goes around "reading" player's chinese tattoos telling them stuff like "Ignorance? Why'd you get a tattoo that said Ignorance?" and "I like men? Well I'm a man, so nice to meet you I guess"

[TitleMaster]

Now that the weekend is over, I had a chance to review some of my responses here and I don't understand why I got so huffy-puffy about the subject matter.

Albeit, I feel that it's an important issue and has a lot to do with the notions of identity, nationalism, and race but I think I went a bit overboard, considering that my final point was simply to use the NY Cheesecake Graham cracker crust over fortune cookies.

Perhaps I miss those lengthy political sciences back in school but who knows. Sorry to Kiorrik, I think my tone made it look like I was specifically targeting you and for that, I apologize.

[Kiorrik]

No harm done, have a TP.

[Eja117]

That's maybe the third apology I've seen here in like 4 years...so TP

[Eja117]

I was thinking today....If Jeremy Lin started advertising for Asian stuff....Panda Express, Ramen noodles.....does that make it less wrong to make fortune cookie ice cream?  By the same token if a black guy advertises for something black...can't think of a good example here...definitely not one I'm gonna write anyway....does that make the watermellon and chicken ice cream less wrong? I'd say no. If a white guy advertises for Bennigans does that make the vanilla with white chocolate ice cream less wrong?

I miss Bennigans. Too early for ice cream.

[Edgar]

hit the rookie wall?
or better
the melo effect?

[TitleMaster]

I was thinking today....If Jeremy Lin started advertising for Asian stuff....Panda Express, Ramen noodles.....does that make it less wrong to make fortune cookie ice cream?  By the same token if a black guy advertises for something black...can't think of a good example here...definitely not one I'm gonna write anyway....does that make the watermellon and chicken ice cream less wrong? I'd say no. If a white guy advertises for Bennigans does that make the vanilla with white chocolate ice cream less wrong?

I miss Bennigans. Too early for ice cream.

Here's the thing, what you're describing is what Deepak Copra does. He's a promoter of the Indian Yogi/Guru/etc thinking into the west, but as a post-hippy/post-Beatles area, modern day suit & tie man. Well, that's fine for him (financially speaking) but in effect, he tends to reinforce the negative perception that South Asian mystical experts are a type of modern day motivational con man (not too dissimilar from Tony Robbins and others) but pandering an ancient culture to susceptible New Age types.

Now granted, if Lin decided to promote noodles, dumplings, or what have you, it's not it's a negative per se but he's consciously pigeonholed himself, as a Chinaman diaspora type in America. Thus, it should be his choice and not that of some random VP of marketing at Ben & Jerry's. Realize, much of Bruce Lee's real success was that. Though he was a US national, he was always marketed as a diasporic martial artist, with his *real home* in Hong Kong where he'd learned Wing Chuan.

[Eja117]

I was thinking today....If Jeremy Lin started advertising for Asian stuff....Panda Express, Ramen noodles.....does that make it less wrong to make fortune cookie ice cream?  By the same token if a black guy advertises for something black...can't think of a good example here...definitely not one I'm gonna write anyway....does that make the watermellon and chicken ice cream less wrong? I'd say no. If a white guy advertises for Bennigans does that make the vanilla with white chocolate ice cream less wrong?

I miss Bennigans. Too early for ice cream.

Here's the thing, what you're describing is what Deepak Copra does. He's a promoter of the Indian Yogi/Guru/etc thinking into the west, but as a post-hippy/post-Beatles area, modern day suit & tie man. Well, that's fine for him (financially speaking) but in effect, he tends to reinforce the negative perception that South Asian mystical experts are a type of modern day motivational con man (not too dissimilar from Tony Robbins and others) but pandering an ancient culture to susceptible New Age types.

Now granted, if Lin decided to promote noodles, dumplings, or what have you, it's not it's a negative per se but he's consciously pigeonholed himself, as a Chinaman diaspora type in America. Thus, it should be his choice and not that of some random VP of marketing at Ben & Jerry's. Realize, much of Bruce Lee's real success was that. Though he was a US national, he was always marketed as a diasporic martial artist, with his *real home* in Hong Kong where he'd learned Wing Chuan.

Yeah, but while this is very deep I don't think it would prevent him from doing car commercials or something. And I don't think making the fortune cookie ice cream would stop him from doing that either.

Plus here's the thing. We all eat fortune cookies, ice cream, noodles, and "chinese food". So in a way using him for that stuff I don't see as all that bad. Now if they made chinese food in the shape of a dog and called it Linsanity I would see that as a big bad no no, because that's taboo here.

[TitleMaster]

Yeah, but while this is very deep I don't think it would prevent him from doing car commercials or something. And I don't think making the fortune cookie ice cream would stop him from doing that either.

Plus here's the thing. We all eat fortune cookies, ice cream, noodles, and "chinese food". So in a way using him for that stuff I don't see as all that bad. Now if they made chinese food in the shape of a dog and called it Linsanity I would see that as a big bad no no, because that's taboo here.

If you vaguely recall the rise of Connie Chung's fame, in the 70s/80s, she was the first primer Asian-American female anchorperson. Throughout her rise to becoming a mainstay media fixture, she'd separated herself from Asian-American type of affiliations. A lot of east Asian organizations complained about her for this reason, because they'd said that she'd sold out and became *white* in the inside. I guess the slur for that is a 'twinkie' or a 'banana'.

But strangely enough ... she did become a de-facto white. And what I mean by that is that for some reason, much of America didn't see her as a type of cultural or ethnic invasion into their national news outlet and they unconsciously incorporated her, as if she were from some eastern European/central Asian nation and not really an *east Asian* disaporic per se. The result is clear because in the 80s, east Asian anchorwomen were being hired, all over, in various media outlets throughout the country. Today, you'd be hard pressed, not to find an Asian woman in a newsroom. And a lot of it has to do with the type of image which Connie had projected and that's that Asians aren't any different from any other person who ancestors had come from eastern Europe.

For Lin, however, if he wants to conjure a similar type of effect, he'll need to do something in the same vein. If he starts on the Deepak Copra path, then he's really accepted that fortune cookie label, which will prevent him from being more mainstream and less ethnic. Instead, his car ads will have that 'Tokyo Drift' ala Asian mafia [see Chow Fat/Hong Kong ] movies spin, instead of a cool guy, who just won the NBA trophy, taking his Porsche out for a drive.