Ice cream giant Ben & Jerry’s Twitter feed has become a platform from which to spread left-wing ideologies. This July, its baseless call for “reparations for those impacted by slavery” sparked a major controversy, costing its parent company Unilever an estimated $2.5 billion in market cap alone. This follows a number of other posts that range from criticizing U.S. police forces to promoting gender transition surgery for children.
Recently, Ben & Jerry’s decried the Supreme Court’s ruling on race-based admissions, claiming “that a crucial tool in the fight against white supremacy had been gutted.” This narrowly framed rhetoric fails to acknowledge widely accepted positions that racial preferences in college admissions unfairly penalizes minorities.
Similarly, the company’s tweet on February 2021 honed in on the death of Tyre Nichols, overlooking substantial evidence that race played no role in his death at all. But rather than wait for the facts of the case to play out, Ben & Jerry’s instead sought to push the narrative of racial disparity in policing.
Promoting activism, its Thanksgiving tweet on November 2020 even provided a guide to “6 facts” to lecture family about racism at the dinner table. These “facts” include baseless claims such as that American elections were “built to maintain white supremacy,” and “when black people prosper, white people riot.”
While superficially promoting diversity, Ben & Jerry’s has no qualms about aligning itself with far-left ideology. Its stance on environmental issues is no different, with the company claiming in a tweet in April 2021 that “we can’t save the planet if we don’t first dismantle the systems of injustice that target Black and Brown people.” Apparently, its calls of “climate alarmism” gives it a free pass to opportunistically politicize and even mislead others.
Ben & Jerry’s has, by and large, failed to recognize the human cost and complexity of the proposed Arctic Development project, contrary to its claims of standing with Native Alaskans. Similarly, while this project would, according to some, spur economic growth and create jobs, Ben & Jerry’s championed a campaign by left-wing billionaire Hansjorg Wyss that sought to repeal the project, without even a passing mention of the costs.
We support reparations for those impacted by slavery. This week Congress held a hearing on H.R. 40, legislation that would establish a commission to study & develop reparation proposals for African Americans. Read more from our CEO and take action now: https://t.co/KJeDeUtV5X pic.twitter.com/MI3CjHxbiY
— Ben & Jerry's (@benandjerrys) February 22, 2021
“It’s time for reparations,” Ben & Jerry’s boldly proclaimed in its statement. But while this sentiment may be well-intentioned, it has done very little to change the conversation on serious topics such as racial disparity, inequality, white supremacy. Nor has it proposed any constructive solutions that address these issues in an unbiased and comprehensive manner.
At a time when the United States is politically and socially divided, Ben & Jerry’s Twitter feed should seek to reach a wide audience using moderate language, rather than promoting far-left ideologies that risk further alienating voters and dividing the nation. Quoting Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Ben & Jerry’s should do the same.