‘DEFUND’ TROOPER SCOOPER
‘Anti-cop’ ice cream
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, which seeks to defund cops and replace them with social workers in certain incidents.
Funds generated by 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 Web 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 e-mails and mailings about the bill.
The Vermont-based ice-cream maker announced the new flavor Monday as a limited batch of coldbrew coffee ice cream with marshmallow swirls and fudge brownies.
The company’s “US activism manager,” Jabari Pall, announced the flavor at a press conference alongside Bush (D-Mo.).
“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 at the event.
The batch of ice cream was developed in partnership with blackowned coffee and tea company BLK & Bold and New York’s Greyston Bakery.
The graphic on the pint (inset), 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 flavor.
Bush 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 division would use nonpolice first responders for emergencies involving mental-health issues, substance abuse and 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.
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.