The popular ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s, is working hard for standing up against racial discrimination and racial inequality. The company called in a vesting post on social media, for a complete undoing of white supremacy while naming some of those recently lost to police brutality.
Being one of the few brands to publicly stand in support of a wide range of issues, Ben & Jerry’s has always been for justice. This includes gay rights, women’s rights, animal rights—and most crucially, racial inequality and #BlackLivesMatter.
Ben & Jerry’s posted the following message in a recent post on the company website and on social media:
“What happened to George Floyd was not the result of a bad apple; it was the predictable consequence of a racist and prejudiced system and culture that has treated Black bodies as the enemy from the beginning. What happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis is the fruit borne of toxic seeds planted on the shores of our country in Jamestown in 1619, when the first enslaved men and women arrived on this continent. Floyd is the latest in a long list of names that stretches back to that time and that shore. Some of those names we know – Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Emmett Till, Martin Luther King, Jr. – most we don’t.”
Ben & Jerry’s also called on Trump and other elected officials to publicly renounce white supremacists—and urged Congress to pass H.R. 40, which is a legislation that would create a directive to study the effects of slavery and discrimination from 1619 to the present and endorse appropriate remedies.
The company also asked that the Department of Justice to reinvigorate its Civil Rights Division. In case you didn’t know, Ben & Jerry’s supports the creation of a national task force aimed at ending racial violence and increasing police accountability.
