Ben & Jerry’s tells Americans to ‘dismantle White Supremacy’

Ben & Jerry’s has put out a call for customers and ice-cream lovers to “dismantle white supremacy” and “grapple with the sins of our past” as sweeping protests over the in-custody death of George Floyd roar on across the country.

“All of us at Ben & Jerry’s are outraged about the murder of another Black person by Minneapolis police officers last week and the continued violent response by police against protesters,” they said in a lengthy statement on Tuesday.

“We have to speak out. We have to stand together with the victims of murder, marginalization, and repression because of their skin color, and with those who seek justice through protests across our country. We have to say his name: George Floyd.”

The ice cream company, which does not shy away from political issues, also condemned “inhumane police brutality that is perpetuated by a culture of white supremacy” while demanding justice for Floyd.

The 46-year-old died in Minneapolis on Memorial Day after Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck until he became unresponsive. Video shared online, which has sparked nationwide unrest, shows Floyd in handcuffs and begging for his life.

The Hennepin County medical examiner on Monday ruled Floyd’s death a homicide and said in a report that he died from “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”

Chauvin has since been arrested but none of the other three officers involved have yet been charged.

“What happened to George Floyd was not the result of a bad apple; it was the predictable consequence of a racist and prejudiced system and culture that has treated Black bodies as the enemy from the beginning,” said Ben & Jerry’s.

Floyd’s death is among several recent high-profile killings of black people, including Breonna Taylor in Louisville and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. Ben & Jerry’s invoked their names in the lengthy statement as well as victims of past racial violence, including Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Emmett Till, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Ben & Jerry’s, which has previously voiced its support for the Black Lives Matter movement, called on President Trump and elected officials to “to commit our nation to a formal process of healing and reconciliation.”

“Instead of calling for the use of aggressive tactics on protesters, the President must take the first step by disavowing white supremacists and nationalist groups that overtly support him, and by not using his Twitter feed to promote and normalize their ideas and agendas,” the company continued.

The ice cream-makers also demanded that the Justice Department “reinvigorate its Civil Rights Division as a staunch defender of the rights of Black and Brown people.”

“Unless and until white America is willing to collectively acknowledge its privilege, take responsibility for its past and the impact it has on the present, and commit to creating a future steeped in justice, the list of names that George Floyd has been added to will never end,” they concluded.

“We have to use this moment to accelerate our nation’s long journey towards justice and a more perfect union.”

Mao and the Black Panthers agree

Black Panthers co-founder Bobby Seale talks barbecue and the Black Panthers:

Labor Day Bobby-que
By Ben White
September 1, 2007
https://www.vice.com/read/bobby-v14n9

...(Interviewer): Weren’t Bobby Hutton and Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver on their way to help out with a barbecue in ‘68 when they got into a shoot-out with police and Bobby Hutton and a policeman were killed?

Seale: That’s what Eldridge Cleaver said, that they were picking up stuff, because there was a barbecue fundraiser rally the next day or something like that. But I’ve since found out that was a lie. That was just his slick little way of saying that they didn’t ambush the cops, the cops shot at them. But in fact, I found out that they shot first at the cops. Martin Luther King had just gotten killed, so my problem there was trying to stop riots. In fact, I stopped all riots in the San Francisco Bay area. I didn’t believe in riots. That’s flat, straight out. I was supposed to be going to Martin Luther King’s funeral, and Eldridge Cleaver took David Hilliard and four or five guys out and in effect they ambushed the cops, I have since found out. That’s really what happened. They got in a shoot-out situation, they got dispersed, they couldn’t shoot, they weren’t trained, trying to run around and do some old guerilla b***s***. And you know, I always was p***ed off with them about that. I’d had military training, and I knew the difference between a domestic-style situation and a military situation. And Eldridge just turned out to be a g**d*** anarchist, you know what I mean? But at any rate... bang, bang.

(Interviewer): So Eldridge and Hutton and those guys were just p***ed, and wanted to go get some?

Seale: Yeah, because Martin Luther King was killed. And I’m saying all over the place, “No rioting, we’re not going to do anything,” blah blah blah. But they didn’t listen to me.

(Interviewer): Actually, I also read where Minister of Defense Huey Newton wrote somewhere that in 1967, when he got shot and shot a cop, he was on his way to get barbecue in Oakland.

Seale: That’s a lie. He wasn’t going to get no g**d*** barbecue. But Huey’s situation was different. Frey, the police officer, really did try to kill Huey. Frey had ordered Huey to walk to the police vehicle. And Huey always recited the law. That was his strongest articulate advocacy point. Anytime a police officer moves a person from one spot to another, technically that person is under arrest. I ask you, “Am I under arrest? I demand to know what I’m being arrested for.” So Huey stopped and turned around right in front of the police vehicle, and Frey had his gun out. Huey grabs at the gun, y’know-I had seen Huey do this before, when we got into a fight with police. So what happened is Frey pulls that trigger and shoots Huey right in the thigh. Now, Officer Heanes, the other police officer, the shot goes off, he’s looking at Huey grabbing Frey, and he’s trying to shoot Huey, but they’re rolling and moving. It was told in court that the first bullet that hit Officer Frey was from Heanes’s gun. This is the real situation. Huey hits the ground, and Huey pulls his own gun out and fires back at Heanes and wounds him. Huey shoots Frey more, because Frey is moving and not dead, and then falls down, because he’s shot. The other guy, Gene McKinney, who had got out of the car and ran, came back and helped Huey get away from there. Huey wound up in the hospital, and that’s where the police arrested him. Huey’s situation was different from Eldridge’s.

(Interviewer): What was Eldridge like?

Seale: Eldridge was just a pure anarchist. He wanted to pull that Bakunin b***s*** off, you know what I mean? I mean, to show you what I’m talking about, Eldridge put out a pamphlet called “Catechism of a Revolutionary”-this is after that shoot-out situation. This is a Black Panther Party Ministry of Information pamphlet. I had not read this ****, OK? I did not know it was all Bakunin, the 1800s anarchist. And Marlon Brando called me up, he said, “Bobby! I’m not going to send you any more money.” Because Brando would give me money. I guess he must have donated ten grand to me. But he says, “I’m not gonna work with you guys any more. You’re running around telling people to kill their mother and father for the revolution. That ain’t right.” I said, “We don’t do any such g**d*** thing, what the hell’s wrong with you, Marlon?” “Here on page so-and-so!” “Of what?” He says, “Your ‘Catechism of a Revolutionary’!” So I says, “Rosemary, hand me that out of my briefcase.” I had the thing in my briefcase for two months and never read the damn thing because I’m busy, I’m organizing too much. So I got on page so-and-so, and he’s reading, “Kill their mothers and...” and I says, “Damn, I’m sorry, man...” He says, “OK, I’ll see you, bye”-click. So I lost my funding source because of Eldridge Cleaver’s bull. Later in life, I’m really taking the time to look at this and put two and two together. When I go back to speaking with Eldridge in 1992, we got a chance to get in various conversations. So I’m asking Eldridge, you had “Catechism of a Revolutionary.” I remember you called Martin Luther King a nonviolent fool. Now you’re a born-again Christian on the other side of the fence. So when Little Bobby Hutton was killed, were you operating from the standpoint of “Catechism of a Revolutionary”? He said, yeah, I was just stupid, I just thought we had to do something, boom boom boom.

(Interviewer): What does “Catechism of a Revolutionary” say, exactly?

Seale: It’s based on Bakunin. He ran around and said kill officials of the government of all kinds, murder them, shoot them down in the street, blah blah blah. Kill the police and so on-anything that represents the state.

I was one for programmatic organizing. All those free breakfast programs, I created those programs. Huey Newton didn’t create them, he was in jail when these programs were created. Huey did not start that. I started that ****, you know what I mean? I did that ****. Because to me, you cannot go around here just standing on the street corner, talking a bunch of quote-unquote militant talk if you’re not gonna organize the people. “We need unity in the black community,” that’s what the phrase was. I said, well, you’ve got to unify people around something. That’s what I used to say to some of these guys way before the party ever started. A bunch of armchair revolutionaries, never did anything. And ultimately I created, got Huey to help me create, the Black Panther Party. I’m the one that got the office, I’m the one that painted the sign on the window, I’m the one that laid out the application to join. I did all of that ****. I was an engineer, I made good money, then I was in city government and I made good money as the director of the youth-jobs program. I invested my money and time. I wasn’t married or anything. You have to do real things. I was a carpenter and a builder. That’s what I was about, moving to build the house, a political house, a political, electoral framework to unify people around grassroots programs.

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