Woke ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s has unveiled a new flavor whose proceeds will partly go to support lefty Rep. Cori Bush‘s $10 billion, anti-police bill that seeks to defund cops and replace them with social workers in certain incidents.
A portion of the proceeds from sales of the flavor, called “Change is Brewing,” will be donated to “grassroots groups working to transform public safety in America,” according to Ben & Jerry’s.
And when customers navigate to the Ben & Jerry’s site to buy the ice cream, they’re urged to “Join the Movement for Black Lives and support the People’s Response Act!”
Customers can then sign up for emails and mailings about the bill.
The Vermont-based ice cream maker announced the new flavor Monday as a limited-batch flavor of cold brew coffee ice cream with marshmallow swirls and fudge brownies.
The company’s “US activism manager,” Jabari Pall, announced the flavor at a press conference Monday alongside Bush herself.
“The flavor supports the vision of the world in which every community is safe and everyone including black and brown people can thrive,” Pall said Monday at the event.
The batch of ice cream was developed in partnership with black-owned coffee and tea company Blk & Bold and New York’s Greyston Bakery.
The graphic on the pint, designed by artist Laci Jordan, features a black woman painting the word “liberation.”
Ben & Jerry’s also partnered with the Movement for Black Lives for the rollout of the new flavor.
The announcement comes after Bush, a Democrat from Missouri, introduced the People’s Response Act in June in an effort to establish a new public safety division within the Department of Health and Human Services.
The new division would use nonpolice first responders for emergency situations involving mental health issues, substance abuse or a handful of other situations, according to the text of the bill.
“I’m the St. Louis congresswoman and I’m proud to be the St. Louis congresswoman, to be someone whose work was born primarily out of the Ferguson uprising,” Bush said Monday, referring to her time organizing in Missouri after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown.
“For decades, our communities have suffered under the violence of intentional disinvestment and underfunding.
“Our healthcare, our education, our housing, our green spaces all left in shambles while our police spending per capita continued to increase to its present level as one of the highest in the country,” she said.
Bush — 45-year-old member of “The Squad” — made headlines earlier this year for spending nearly $70,000 of her campaign funds on personal security, even as she pushes the defund the police movement.
“I’m going to make sure I have security because I now have had attempts on my life and I have too much work to do, there are too many people that need help right now,” she said in an August interview with CBS defending the spending.
“If I end up spending $200,000, if I spend $10 more dollars on it — you know what, I get to be here to do the work. So suck it up.
“Defunding the police has to happen. We need to defund the police and put that money into social safety nets because we’re trying to save lives.”
It’s not the first time Ben & Jerry’s has made waves for its activist stances. The company announced earlier this year that it would stop selling ice cream in the occupied territories in Israel.
The move has led a number of US states to divest from Ben & Jerry’s parent company Unilever and sparked pro-Israel protests against the ice cream maker.
Unilever, which owns the popular ice cream company that announced plans to stop selling its products in the occupied territories, has been taking heat from a number of government officials — including Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett — over the controversial decision.
Bennett said the boycott would have “severe consequences.”