Those who enjoy Ben & Jerry’s better enjoy donating to the ice cream’s political causes. Portions of sales from Empower Mint, a new flavor released Tuesday at North Carolina Central University, will benefit the state chapter of the NAACP, the Boston Globe reported.
The flavor is part of Ben & Jerry’s “Democracy Is In Your Hands” campaign, described as a “fudge-filled flavor reflect[ing] our belief that voting gives everyone a taste of empowerment, and that an election should be more ‘by the people’ and less ‘buy the people.’”
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A news release last week referenced voter ID laws and other “incredible barriers to voting:”
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield support Bernie Sanders, and Cohen created the Bernie’s Yearning flavor.
The company noted that Cohen and Greenfield “were speaking and acting as as[sic] private citizens, not Ben & Jerry’s or Unilever.”
A North Carolina Voter ID law was upheld last month and voters in the state will need to show various forms of “acceptable photo ID at the polls,” with some exceptions.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which Ben & Jerry’s is trying to bring back through a petition on their website:
An FAQ describes the overall campaign as to “bridge the divide between two historically different but intrinsically connected issues: the movement to expand voter access and voting rights and the movement to get big money out the political process.”
Ben & Jerry’s also promotes publicly funded elections, automatic voter registration, early voting, voting by mail, and overturning “onerous voter ID laws.”
Ben & Jerry’s also released a video promoting the flavor and lamenting the white, rich, male voters “who do not reflect the diversity” of America, and the use of money in politics.
