Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream has stirred up controversy this week with a tweet about stolen Native American land. The post, put out on July 4th, said that it's time to "commit to returning" what has been stolen from Indigenous people in America and that the first move should be to return Mount Rushmore back to the Lakota Sioux Tribe.
The tweet struck a nerve with many customers, with the hashtag #boycottbenandjerrys trending shortly after they posted. Many saw the post as an “anti-American sentiment” and an insult to the US on Independence Day.
The company, founded by Bernie Sanders allies Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, has long been associated with progressive political movements. After being sold to British multinational Unilever, the company has pushed the far-left agenda even harder. The blog post linked to the tweet was about dismantling white supremacy and reclaiming stolen land.
Joseph Massey accused the company of hypothetical crimes against cows, while Kevin Dalton pointed out that Ben & Jerry’s factories were likely built on stolen land as well. Eli Klein’s criticism was that the company should not be advocating to “give America away,” while Libby Emmons said that the whole thing is “stupid” and “pandering nonsense.”
Ben & Jerry’s has not shied away from partnering with social justice movements in the past. Most recently they featured Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe for the nonfat frozen yogurt flavor Change the Whirled and in 2021 they worked with Representative Cori Bush to promote her "Land Back" bill with the aptly titled “Justice ReMix'd” flavor. It consists of cinnamon and chocolate ice cream, cinnamon bun dough, and spicy fudge brownies all to support the movement.
The company pulled its products from the Israeli market in 2021 for what it called human rights violations, only to return a year later with a local franchise.
Many call Ben & Jerry’s a beacon of progressive activism, but maybe this tweet was going a bit too far. Continually pushing the far-left agenda seems to be going against the values that many Americans find important. No matter their ideological orientation, no company should advocate for the dissolution of an entire nation - a sentiment that the majority of customers seem to agree on.
Whether this post was a misstep or not, Ben & Jerry’s isn’t afraid to stand up for what it believes in. It will be interesting to see how their customers respond to the company’s continued activism in the future.