One man’s ice cream is another man’s poison

Okay, I’d seen the Ben & Jerry “Black & Tan” ice cream on the shelves, and not given it much thought. It’s a drink, right? Layered, half ale (preferably Bass) on the bottom, with stout (preferably Guinness) on the top. B&J’s concoction was a bit different, consisting of stout ice cream (!) with chocolate swirls and a foamy stout head — not anything I’d jump for, but there’s a lot of ice cream flavors that aren’t my cuppa (or cone-a).

Then I read a short article in a British paper on the way home. Seems B&J will be renaming this concoction, introduced this past March “in time for St. Patrick’s Day” because — well, some Irish don’t recall with much fondness the original Black & Tans, a reservist para-military formed to bolster the Royal Irish Constabulary during 1920-21:

Members of the Black and Tans were paid the relatively good wage of ten shillings a day plus full board and lodging. With minimal police training, their main role was to strengthen the military might of police posts, where they functioned as sentries, guards, escorts for government agents, reinforcement to the regular police, and crowd control, and mounted a determined counter-insurgency campaign. Because of these duties they were viewed by Republicans as an army of occupation. They soon gained a reputation for brutality, as the RIC campaign against the IRA and Sinn Féin members was stepped up and police reprisals for IRA attacks were condoned by the government. Many of the atrocities attributed to the Black and Tans were probably actually committed by the far more brutal Auxiliaries, but most Republicans did not make a distinction, and “Black and Tans” was often used as a catch-all term for both groups. Over one-third of the Black and Tans died or left the service before they were disbanded along with the rest of the RIC in 1922, an extremely high wastage rate, and well over half received government pensions.

[…] The Black and Tans sacked Cork city, the centre of which was burned out, and Balbriggan. Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, died after a 78-day hunger strike in Brixton Prison, London. The Black and Tans’ campaign was little more than state-sponsored terrorism, with very little pretence being made at promoting law and order and great emphasis on crushing Irish separatism, whether violent or peaceful. On the other hand, some British politicians (including Oswald Mosley) and the King made no secret of their horror at the behaviour of Crown forces which made international headlines, damaging British credibility. There is no doubt as to the ferocity of the fighting and that atrocities were committed, and feelings continue to run high regarding their actions. “Black and Tan” or “Tan” remains a pejorative term for Englishmen in Ireland. One of the most famous Irish Republican songs is Dominic Behan’s Come Out Ye Black And Tans. The Anglo-Irish War is often referred to by modern Irish republicans as the “Tan War” or “Black-and-Tan War”.

The above quote, from Wikipedia, shows both the schizoid nature of that source over controversial topics, as well as a sense of how passionately some Irish still feel about the Black & Tans and the Troubles of less than a century ago.

And comments here and here show that through even more clearly in terms of folks objecting to this name for an ice cream, innocently intended or not That includes an amusing list of flavors that B&J will come out with next: Sinn Fudge, Waffle-SS, Kharamel Rouge, Gulag Archipistachio, or (my favorite, in context) Bloody Sundae.

At any rate, the article indicated that B&J were going to drop the flavor because of Irish objections, which is probably just as well — it’s certainly not meant to be a political statement, it’s a new flavor name without its own history. I haven’t been able to find confirmation on Google or B&J’s pages as of yet, and it doesn’t yet show up in the “Favor Graveyard,” but presumably the article was correct. I’ll mention something if I find out more.

Once again, we see the consequences of being geo-politically incorrect in this globalized age …