When this chapter in America’s history of its struggle against racism is written, two names will stand out among all the others: Ben and Jerry. Or at least that seems to be what the ice-cream company hopes, given the somewhat bizarre statement that it issued this week.
In response to the brutal killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, and the protests and riots that continue to roil the United States, this peddler of sickly sweet desserts proclaimed: ‘We must dismantle white supremacy. Silence is NOT an option.’ It says that nothing will change ‘until white America is willing to collectively acknowledge its privilege, take responsibility for its past and the impact it has on the present’.
Whether or not you agree with the drift of this, the weirdness of a corporate giant coming out and saying it shouldn’t escape us, even though such interventions have become more and more common of late.
Ben & Jerry’s has some form here.
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