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Ben & Jerry’s Faces Growing Boycott Calls Over July 4 Message

Ben & Jerry's, a brand of Unilever, is seen on display in a store in Manhattan, New York City on March 24, 2022. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

By Jack Phillips
July 5, 2023Updated: July 6, 2023
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Ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s received significant backlash on social media after it denigrated the United States during the Fourth of July weekend and claimed it only exists “on stolen land,” with some calling for a Bud Light-style boycott.
“This 4th of July, it’s high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it,” Ben & Jerry’s said on its Twitter account before linking to an article on the topic.
“Ah, the Fourth of July. Who doesn’t love a good parade, some tasty barbecue, and a stirring fireworks display?” the company continued to say. “The only problem with all that, though, is that it can distract from an essential truth about this nation’s birth: The US was founded on stolen Indigenous land.”
The post continued to say: “This year, let’s commit to returning it. Here’s why we need to start with Mount Rushmore.”  It then claimed that the land on which Mount Rushmore sits was seen as sacred to the Native American tribes before alleging that the U.S. government broke its treaties with the Lakota and other tribes in the mid-19th century.
The series of posts drew an immediate and sharp backlash from prominent users.
“Make @benndjerrys Bud Light again,” country singer-songwriter John Rich wrote in response, responding to the monthslong boycott targeting Bud Light that has seen the beer company’s year-over-year sales plummet. While Bud Light didn’t attack the founding of the United States, the company was panned for producing a can of beer with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s face on it.
“Long overdue for the Bud Light treatment. You hate the country, fine. We won’t buy your product. All good,” another user wrote in response. “When is Ben & Jerry’s giving up their land?” Jenna Ellis, a former attorney to Donald Trump, wrote on Twitter.
The controversial Twitter posts also drew an opinion article from the New York Post’s editorial board on Wednesday, with the paper calling on the brand to “give back the land your US factories and stores sit on and the millions upon millions you’ve made from exploiting the indigenous.”
“The brand backed bad-joke Occupy Wall Street, for crying out loud; it aligns with the anti-Israel BDS movement. Co-founder Ben Cohen funds groups opposed to US military aid to Ukraine,” the editorial wrote before calling for a boycott of the Unilever-owned ice cream company.
“Remember, America, you don’t have to accept woke preening from corporate elites. Speak up—with your wallets,” it said.
The Washington Examiner, too, released an opinion article that suggested consumers boycott Ben & Jerry’s.
Cans of Bud Light sit in a cooler in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 30, 2023. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)
“It may be fun to imagine, but, of course, Ben & Jerry’s will never actually give back the land its corporate office sits on. It will simply exert pressure on others to give up their land,” it said, adding that it’s now Americans’ “job to try and turn the tide” against the company.
However, unlike Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch, Ben & Jerry’s has posted nakedly political messages for decades. The company, based in Vermont, has often supported left-wing causes—especially [url=https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/bernie-sanders-ben-and-jerrys-bernies-yearning-218185]those championed by self-proclaimed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
In June, Ben & Jerry’s announced it wouldn’t pay to advertise on Twitter and claimed that “hate speech” is on the rise across the platform since Elon Musk purchased the company last year. In a blog post weeks ago, the company wrote that changes at Twitter are causing it “great concern” and that “hate speech is up dramatically while content moderation has become all but non-existent.”
The firm also faced boycotts from consumers after saying it would not sell ice cream in Israel’s Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which it described as “occupied Palestinian territory.”
The decision was denounced by Israel supporters as well as state governments. Eventually, Ben & Jerry’s filed a lawsuit against Unilever after the firm sold its Israeli division to a local franchisee before the issue was settled in December.
And in March, company co-founder Ben Cohen spoke out about the U.S. government providing military assistance to Ukraine, saying that the United States should instead try to negotiate and end to the war.
“I think the U.S. should use its power to negotiate an end to the war, not prolong the death and destruction by supplying more weapons,” Mr. Cohen told the Daily Beast in March.
Mr. Cohen and Jerry Greenfield co-founded Ben & Jerry’s in 1978 before they sold the firm in 2000. As part of an agreement, the company has maintained its voice on social issues and has long supported Democrat or left-wing causes.
The Epoch Times sought comment from Unilever on Wednesday. Neither Unilever nor Ben & Jerry’s has released public statements about the boycott calls.

Quote:People who live in glass houses…

The New York Post reported that Unilever, the company that owns Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, has suffered a decrease in stock price and market cap after Ben & Jerry’s posted a tweet on Independence Day condemning the U.S. for existing on “stolen Indigenous land.”

By Thursday, two days after the woke tweet, Unilever’s stock price had fallen 1.9 percent for a corresponding market cap loss of $1.7 billion.
Interestingly, Ben & Jerry’s tweet left out the fact that the land its headquarters sits on in Burlington, Vermont, is within the historic territory of the Abenaki tribe, according to Newsweek.
Twitter users were quick to point out the hypocrisy and demand that the restitution of land start with Ben & Jerry’s.

Quote:The woke ice cream company Ben & Jerry's scorned the United States on July 4, telling Americans their country "exists on stolen Indigenous land" and to return it.

Patriots and prospective customers did not take too kindly to the confectioners' latest anti-American outburst, with some committing to giving the company the "Bud Light" treatment.

In the days since, the company has not only been met with high-profile rebukes and threats of a boycott, but has had its parent company lose billions of dollars and at least one Indian tribe test its sincerity, accepting the land under its headquarters.

Extra to pushing for the retroactive surrender of the mountain, Ben & Jerry's — recently accused of exploiting migrant child labor — reduced Abraham Lincoln, responsible for the Emancipation Proclamation, and the other U.S. presidents whose likenesses are sculpted on the mountain as "colonizers, four white men—two of whom enslaved people and all of whom were hostile to Indigenous people and values. ... The faces on Mount Rushmore are the faces of men who actively worked to destroy Indigenous cultures and ways of life, to deny Indigenous people their basic rights."

According to Ben & Jerry's, to surrender vast swaths of American territory now would serve to help dismantle "white supremacy and systems of oppression."

The backlash to the anti-American post was swift and overwhelming.

(07-07-2023, 06:38 AM)F2d5thCav Wrote: Another absurdly celebrated American corporation that has gone woke.

FFS, there is plenty of tasty ice cream to be had.  I always like the ice cream at Dairy Queen.

What we see with B&J is yet another side effect of allowing corporations to get too large a share of a given market.

Let them go the way of Bud Light.

Cheers

(07-08-2023, 08:42 AM)F2d5thCav Wrote: Bally--

Leftist politics in the USA have been hard at work since at least the 1950s.

What you see today is the culmination of decades of infiltration, undermining, and subversion.

Cheers

(07-08-2023, 04:11 PM)Infolurker Wrote: Tribal Chief Is ‘Interested In Reclaiming’ Ancestral Land Where Ben & Jerry’s HQ Now Stands

Aaron Life on July 7, 2023

Ben & Jerry’s headquarters is located on land originally controlled by a Native American tribe in Vermont, and the chief of this tribe expressed interest in reclaiming the property on Friday.

Ben & Jerry’s marked Independence Day on Tuesday by tweeting that the U.S. should “commit to returning” land to Native Americans. In response, Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Band of The Coosuk Abenaki Nation said his tribe would be willing to take back the land currently owned by Ben & Jerry’s, according to Newsweek.

“We are always interested in reclaiming the stewardship of our lands throughout our traditional territories and providing opportunities to uplift our communities,” Stevens told Newsweek in an interview. However, Stevens added that Ben & Jerry’s has not approached him with any offers to return the land back to his tribe.

Stevens’ tribe is part of the Nulhegan band which formerly controlled a large portion of New England. When the Europeans moved onto their land, the band was infected with diseases that forced them to move to what is now Canada, according to Newsweek.

In a statement, Ben & Jerry’s claims that the best place to start returning land to Native Americans  is Mount Rushmore. They call for the United States to return the South Dakota land to the Lakota Sioux.

“From there, in 1927, they watched as their holy mountain, now located on land known as South Dakota, was desecrated and dynamited to honor their colonizers, four white men—two of whom enslaved people and all of whom were hostile to Indigenous people and values,” the statement reads.

Ben & Jerry’s hasn’t yet publicly responded to Steven’s comments.
Ben & Jerry’s did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.