Cancel culture has come for a New England favorite. Brigham’s brand ice cream is dropping the word “jimmies” and substituting “sprinkles” because someone, somewhere has claimed that jimmies has its roots in racism. “Jimmies” is what sprinkles are commonly called in New England, particularly Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Nothing is safe anymore.
FOX Business reports:
New England ice cream brand quietly drops name after cancel culture takes aimWhat’s in a name? If the name is “jimmies,” it’s hard to say, but one ice cream producer in Massachusetts isn’t taking any chances.Brigham’s Ice Cream changed the name of its “Just Jimmies” flavor to “Just Sprinkles” sometime last year.“Jimmies” are what some New Englanders call the ice cream topping most Americans call “sprinkles.” The history of the term “jimmies” isn’t clear – several companies have claimed to have invented it and the topping – but some people now say that it’s a derogatory term related to Jim Crow, the racist caricature that came to stand for discriminatory laws and segregation put into place following the Civil War.Even the fact-checking website Snopes has ruled the Jim Crow connection “unproven.”So why change the name if it may or may not be racist? Lynne Bohan, a spokesperson for Brigham’s parent company, HP Hood, told the Lynnfield Patch this week that, “While the origins of the word ‘jimmies’ is unclear, Brigham’s made the decision to change the name to ensure the brand reflects our values and meets our consumers’ expectations”“Just Sprinkles remains the same flavor/recipe that Brigham’s fans know and love,” Bohan told Patch.
In other words, no one has even proved this term has racist roots, but they’re changing it anyway, just to be on the safe side. This is what cancel culture creates. A world of people living in fear.
Here’s more from the Patch report:
Brigham’s was founded in 1914 in Newton. Lynnfield-based Hood purchased Brigham’s in 2008 and continues to sell quarts of the brand’s most popular flavors throughout New England. A separate company bought — and eventually closed — the restaurant side of the business at the time of the Hood acquisition. At one point there were more than 100 franchised Brigham’s restaurants in New England, but the last one in Arlington changed its name in 2015 before eventually closing.There has been an ongoing debate over the term in recent years, and some smaller ice cream sellers have stopped using it.Officially, the claim that the word jimmies is racist is “unproven,” according to Snopes, the fact-checking website that tries to confirm or disprove rumors.”No valid reason exists to suppose that ‘jimmies’ carries a racist meaning or had a racially-charged origin,” Snopes concluded. “However, it’s difficult to definitively disprove the claim because the term’s entry into the English language is downright murky.”
Newsflash for the rest of the country: New Englanders are stubborn.
Featured image via YouTube.
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