Mother Of Mixed-Race Family Asks Blue Bell To Change "The Great Divide" Flavor Name

Ryan Mayer

In an open letter on Love What Matters, Traci Schmidley, a mother of six children and a foster mom to more, is asking Blue Bell Ice Cream to change the name of their chocolate and vanilla flavor, which is currently named "The Great Divide."

According to Schmidley, the family was sitting down to celebrate the end of a long week with some ice cream when her 10-year-old son saw the name on the carton and decided to make a joke calling it "The Civil War flavor."

"The line down the middle of the carton reminded him of the Mason Dixon line, and the name reminded him of a time in history when our nation appeared to be irrevocably divided. He looked at our table and saw a mixture of both black and white people, not divided on one side or another like in the ice cream but gathered around the table together."

Schmidley says her son wasn't complaining that the name of the ice cream was racist, but rather that it wasn't "the best name for something as wonderfully unifying as Blue Bell ice cream." The children came up with a name that they think better represents the flavor, calling it "Better Together." They wrote a letter to the company that Schmidley shared on her Facebook page.