Ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s continues to use its products to promote social justice. The ice cream giant has unveiled a new flavor whose proceeds would be used to promote the People’s Response Act, legislation proposed by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo).
The bill seeks to curb disproportionate police violence against people with mental illnesses and other health complications. When passed, it will lead to the establishment of a division on community safety within the Department of Health and Human Services that would call upon nonpolice first responders for an emergency involving mental health issues, substance use or other health or behavioral complications.
“For decades, our communities have suffered under the violence of intentional disinvestment and underfunding,” Bush said. “Our healthcare, our education, our housing, our green spaces all left in shambles while our police spending per capita continued to increase to its present level as one of the highest in the country.”
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According to The Hill, the flavor, named Change is Brewing, was revealed on Monday at an event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The flavor is a limited offer of cold brew coffee ice cream with marshmallow swirls and fudge brownies, according to NBC News.
Ben & Jerry’s teamed up with Black-owned coffee and tea company Blk & Bold and New York’s Greyston Bakery for the flavor. Also, the ice cream company partnered with Movement for Black Lives. The graphic of the special ice cream, which features a Black woman painting the word “liberation”, was designed by artist Laci Jordan.
“The flavor supports the vision of the world in which every community is safe and everyone including Black and brown people can thrive,” Jabari Paul, the company’s U.S. activism manager said at a press conference.
Customers who drive to Ben & Jerry’s to buy the ice cream are urged to “Join the Movement for Black Lives and support the People’s Response Act!”
This is not the first time Ben & Jerry’s has voiced support for the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2020, it joined forces with the free-agent quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick with his own ice cream flavor, ‘Change the Whirled.’
In 2019, the Justice ReMix’d flavor was released with the goal of bringing attention to criminal justice reform and racial inequality in the US, according to the “spiring social justice company”.
Aside from voicing out their stance against social and racial injustices with ice cream flavors, the company launched a podcast in collaboration with Vox Media, “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America”, that delves deep into America’s long and twisted history with racism and white supremacy.
