(RNN) – Some Louisiana kids and their friends penned a letter to Blue Bell Creameries suggesting a name change for one of their ice cream flavors that left the company “amazed.”
Traci Schmidley posted the letter to Facebook this week. In it, two of her sons, Isak and Kaleb, and their friend Jayden, explain how they think the name for the vanilla-chocolate mix flavor, Great Divide, could be improved:
“We think some people might misunderstand the name and think the name the Great Divide is about people and the division that exists in our world because of different skin colors,” the letter reads in part.
“Isak and Kaleb have lighter skin and Jayden has darker skin. But Isak and Kaleb also have a brother and sister adopted from foster care who have dark skin as well. We are all our own color and own flavor and there is no divide between us. We think we are all delicious in our own ways.”
Their idea to give the flavor more of an inclusive feeling? Better Together.
Schmidley’s post was widely shared, more than 11,000 times, with 23,000 reactions. It even found its way to Blue Bell.
A spokeswoman wrote in an email to the Dallas Morning News that the company was “amazed” and “impressed” by the kids’ “thoughtfulness and their compassion for all people.”
The spokeswoman, Jenny Van Dorf, told the paper: “We love the idea of ‘better together’ and especially the thoughtful sentiment behind it.”
In a follow-up post on Thursday night, Schmidley responded to backlash with the idea, saying that a number of responses had “incorrectly assumed that I was offended” at the ice cream’s current name.
“I was never offended,” she wrote. “We NEVER claimed something was racist; my son simply came up with a different name to promote unity and togetherness.”
Noting the vitriol in some responses, she wrote, “I am still shocked that we as a people lack the basic compassion to disagree with people without obscenities and name calling.”
“I have been called ‘Liberal’ as an insult more times than I can count today, and the ironic thing is, I am a registered Republican … It’s frustrating that simply because we were identified as an ‘interracial family’ and my children were discussing racial unity, we were assumed to be liberal; those topics shouldn’t be such foreign topics for conservatives,” Schmidley wrote.
She also noted, however, that many messages were encouraging, and Blue Bell called the family to tell them they loved the idea and would be sending the kids a letter.
In a video message from the children also posted to Facebook on Friday, Kaleb seemed befuddled that anyone could take issue with their idea.
“What? It’s a better name.”
Copyright 2018 Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
