Great news for Ben & Jerry’s: the virtue-signaling ice cream company has a chance to put its money where its mouth is.
After flexing social justice warrior cred with the tone-deaf Independence Day post: “This 4th of July, it’s high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it,” the company faced backlash and threats of a boycott.
Now, however, Ben & Jerry’s has a chance to make amends with the some of the indigenous people whose land was stolen, personally.
As Newsweek reported, an indigenous tribe descended from the Native American nation that originally controlled the Vermont land the Ben & Jerry’s headquarters is located on would be interested in taking it back, its chief has said.
Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Band of The Coosuk Abenaki Nation — one of four descended from the Abenaki that are recognized in Vermont — told Newsweek it was “always interested in reclaiming the stewardship of our lands,” but that the company had yet to approach them.
It comes after the ice cream company was questioned as to when it would give up its Burlington, Vermont, headquarters — which sits on a vast swathe of U.S. territory that was under the auspices of the Abenaki people before colonization.
In that July 4 statement, it added that the “land back” movement was about “ensuring that Indigenous people can again govern the land their communities called home for thousands of years.” It focused much of its statement on the taking of land from the Lakota in South Dakota.
Odd, given that social justice can begin at home – Ben & Jerry’s home.
“If you look at the [Abenaki] traditional way of being, we are place-based people. Before recognized tribes in the state, we were the ones who were in this place,” Stevens told the New York Post.
Ben & Jerry’s has expressed strong views on people it deems “were in this place,” not only in America.
Last year, it slammed parent company Unilever for selling its operations in Israel to a local licensee — effectively circumventing a boycott of Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank.
“We continue to believe it is inconsistent with Ben & Jerry’s values for our ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” Ben & Jerry’s tweeted.
But it was OK to sell ice cream on American soil it says was stolen from indigenous people? Is that a take on its Core line of ice creams – posturing on the outside, profiting on the inside?
Unilever bought Ben & Jerry’s more than 20 years ago in a deal valued at $326 million. The ice cream company insisted that its board have autonomy on social and political issues.
Ah, the perks of being a champagne socialist.
This is a teachable moment for Ben & Jerry’s, and its political fan base. Will it stand up to its statement and start negotiating with members of the Abenaki Nation to return the Vermont land? Or does it have a crisis management team working OT to staunch the flow of “put up or shut up?”
We await the scoop on justice served.
