Ku Klux Cookies and Cream

It's actually really hard to think of racist ice cream flavors. It's one of those things that should be easy to turn into a pun, but that turns out to be quite difficult. I think there are two problems: (1) there aren't really as many famous and iconic ice cream flavors as you'd think and (2) I'm kind of shy about putting a really offensive word in the heading of a post.

So, you know, I could have gone with "Mint Chocolate Nip" or "Pistachi-guido" or "Rum Redskin," but a lot of people are gonna see that sort of thing. I don't want to get a bad reputation.

I needed to think of a racist ice cream flavor, by the way, because this post is about a real product that is now available in Germany. It's a dessert treat similar to the American Klondike bar - vanilla ice cream inside a delicious chocolate coating. Mmmm...Sounds good to me. Although I have to say I've never been a huge fan of the ice cream bar. It's complicated. I like a dessert that's simple, that I don't have to think about the whole time I'm eating it.

With a Klondike bar, you're trying to rush through it so it doesn't start to get melty and drip down your hands. And then there's the constant repositioning of the foil wrapper so as to prevent brown chocolate leavings on your fingers. Because once you have that, you can either wipe your chocolatey hands on whatever clothes you're wearing at the time, or lick your fingers clean, which I've never found to be a particularly appetizing or attractive option.

But I digress. I bring this up not because I hate Klondike bars, or even Germans who enjoy Klondike bar-type treats. But because the Krauts have chosen to call their tasty frozen dessert The Negerkuss.

Do I really have to translate "negerkuss" for you? Remember, it's vanilla (white) ice cream covered by choclate (black) candy...Oh, come on...You can figure it out. Okay, let's say that "neger" roughly translates to "person of darker complexion, originally of African ancestry." And "kuss" means kiss.

Ha ha! Those wacky Germans. What a hilariously offensive name for a delicious ice cream-filled confectionary!

But wait! It gets better. Not only did they call their product, um, "Black Person Kiss," but they decorate the advertising and promotional material with minstrel-type images of Sambo-esque black people!

From a first-person account of the Negerkuss in Slate Magazine, by reporter Marc Fisher:

In Germany, the top-selling ice cream novelty is a chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream pop, which is advertised with placards that stand on the sidewalk outside each shop showing an almost entirely naked African boy with an imbecilic grin, a huge bone jammed through his nose and every vicious stereotype of black facial characteristics ever used by the Nazis or any other hate group.

Believe it or not, this isn't the first Slate story to deal with racially insensitive ice cream names. This is the kind of bold reporting we need more of in America.

Check out this article, about a Swedish ice cream treat known as Nogger Black. Oh, come on, now! That's ridiculous. For real?

"Nogger" is apparently an existing ice cream product, an ice cream bar previously available in vanilla encased in chocolate, with a nougat center. Nogger Black substitutes toffee for the nougat and encases the vanilla ice cream in "crispy salty licorice."

Okay, okay...Hold on...This product consists of vanilla ice cream, encased in salty licorice, with a hidden toffee center.

That's arguably the most revolting "dessert" ever devised. I hate black licorice, but even if you like black licorice, you want it served crispy? Atop vanilla ice cream? And toffee? And you want it called Nogger Black?

Even more bizarre is the Nogger Black logo. Yo, yo, check it:



See, it's all ghetto fabulous style, with the graffiti text and whatnot. Sigh...

Here's the company's response to the very reasonable and logical charge that this shit is totally offensive.

"Even if the word 'black' in the logo is inspired by graffiti, we don't see anything wrong with that, nor about alluding to black culture or hip-hop," a GB Glace spokeswoman told Reuters.

Oh. Well, that sets me straight. There's nothing wrong with alluding to black culture. And there's nothing wrong with referring to black people as Noggers, if you want to get technical about it. But I still wouldn't try it, particularly in a loud environment where you might be misheard.