Starbucks Baristas To Hassle Customers About ‘Race
Relations’
by John Hayward17 Mar 2015
Fortune reports on what might just be the worst entry
in the long history of bad corporate ideas, as the Starbucks coffee chain announces
a “race relations initiative” that will include baristas hassling customers
about racism:
Starbucks published a full page ad in the New York
Times on Sunday —
a stark, black, page with a tiny caption “Shall We Overcome?” in the middle,
and the words “RaceTogether” with the company logo, on the bottom right. The
ad, along with a similar one on Monday in USA Today, is part of an
initiative launched this week by the coffee store chain to stimulate
conversation and debate about the race in America by getting employees to
engage with customers about the perennially hot button subject.
Beginning on Monday, Starbucks baristas will have the option
as they serve customers to hand cups on which they’ve handwritten the words
“Race Together” and start a discussion about race. This Friday, each copy of USA Today—
which has a daily print circulation of almost 2 million and is a partner of
Starbucks in this initiative — will have the first of a series of insert with
information about race relations, including a variety of perspectives on race.
Starbucks coffee shops will also stock the insert.
In a video addressing Starbucks’ nearly 200,000 workers, 40%
of whom are members of a racial minority, [Starbucks CEO Howard] Schultz dismissed the notion that race was too hot a
topic business-wise for Starbucks to tackle.
“I reject that. I reject that completely,” he said in the
video address. “It’s an emotional issue. But it is so vitally important to the
country,” he continued, pointing to that the United States is “so much better”
than what the current state of race relations portray it to be.
There will be no escape from politics in
America, good citizens. Your consciousness will be raised every time you walk
into a room, unwrap a package, engage any form of communications device, or
even accept a cup of coffee. Enjoy your evening’s rest while you can, until
left-wingers figure out a way to beam political messages into your dreams.
This sounds like a strategy to beat Starbucks’ stock into
the dirt; maybe the hidden agenda is to drive customers away so they can shut
down a few of the stores they threw up in their over-expansion frenzy and write
off the losses. Even the act of handing customers a cup with race
messages hand-written on them is going to make people feel
uncomfortable, which is presumably the point of the exercise. It would be bad
enough if these slogans were pre-printed on the containers, but hand-writing
them turns it into a personal assault from the barista upon the customer – he
or she is calling you out.
If the baristas begin verbally hassling
customers in an effort to “start a discussion on race” with people who just
want a cup of coffee and a danish to get their busy day started, this
initiative will end up putting a thousand videos on YouTube, few of them
flattering to Starbucks. Some of the customers are going to be more than merely
annoyed by ambush confrontations over this “emotional issue.”
The Fortune article
goes on to say that Starbucks hatched this idea following “several
months of consultations with employees that started in December, in part as a
result of protests that roiled several U.S. cities after grand juries declined
to indict white police officers in the killings of 18-year-old Michael Brown in
Ferguson, Mo., near St. Louis, and 43-year-old Eric Garner in Staten Island,
N.Y.”
Does that mean the “conversations on race” they’ll be
serving up with chai lattes will include explaining how that grand jury
decision in Ferguson was entirely correct, as per every
analysis up to and including Eric Holder’s Justice Department? Will they be
sparking up conversations with people wearing “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot?” T-shirts
to chastise them for spreading a deliberate falsehood manufactured by
race-baiting opportunists?
It won’t take long before Starbucks’ remaining customer base
begins complaining that barista-initiated race conversations are slanted one
way or the other. It won’t be long before the first customer says he thinks
there’s been great progress overall in race relations, and an angry barista
snaps at him… or a customer snaps and treats the entire cafe to an angry
harangue, which might just escalate into a fight… or someone stares at the
hand-written coffee cup and asks the cafe staff, in a tone of barely-controlled
rage, “Are you calling me a racist?” And they probably won’t get through the
first week of this dopey idea before irate customers begin yelling at the
baristas to can the grad-school sociology lectures and just pour the damn
coffee already.
Fortune mentions some of the other political
squabbles Starbucks has gotten caught up in, including the notorious 2013 open
letter to gun owners asking them not to bring their weapons into the store, $5
bracelets sold to raise money for “U.S. job creation,” and a pledge to hire
10,000 veterans and their spouses over five years. Whatever one thinks of those
initiatives – I guess President Obama didn’t share that “no such thing as
shovel-ready jobs” lesson he forced the rest of us to pay for with Starbucks
management – they’re quiet. They didn’t make customers feel
uncomfortable, aside from perhaps a few baristas who got carried away upselling
those “job creation bracelets.”
Race relations, on the other hand, is an inherently aggressive topic.
It’s rarely fodder for brief, upbeat discussions. One of the important lessons
to learn from the Ferguson mess is that race relations have been politicized in
the worst possible way – animosities are deliberately stoked by dishonest
operators who profit financially and politically from unrest.
Good people of every ethnic background who aren’t racist in
the slightest nevertheless feel nervous and defensive about the
issue. Even if the barista and a particular customer see eye-to-eye on the
issue, there’s a good chance other customers within earshot will not. Organized
pressure groups will realize hanging around at Starbucks is a great way to
cause a camera-ready scene… and if management finds their behavior
objectionable, they’ll be able to say, with considerable justification, that
they just came to participate in the big racial discussion the corporation
claims it’s eager to host.
As for the average Joe who just wants his cup of expensive
joe, he’ll either slump his shoulders and start working up some prepared
comments he can mumble to get the barista off his back… or he’ll get his coffee
from a company that doesn’t treat him like a lab rat in a consciousness-raising
experiment. Perhaps some quick-thinking restaurant chains will begin
advertising themselves as peaceful politics-free zones where people can enjoy
meals and beverages without being proselytized from every angle.
Race card
Usage
In the less critical sense, the phrase is commonly used in
two contexts. In the first, and more common context, it alleges that someone has
deliberately and falsely accused another person of being a racist in order to
gain some sort of advantage.[1] An
example of this use of the term occurred during the O. J. Simpson murder trial, when critics accused the defense of "playing the race card"[2] in
presenting Mark
Fuhrman's past (e.g., his recorded use of the word "nigger" in
addition to his being accused of tampering with murder evidence in prior cases,
as well as his use of the Fifth Amendment to
avoid potential self-incrimination upon questioning) as a reason to draw his
credibility as a witness into question.
Daley's shameful play of the race card
September 23, 2007|By Bob Ryan
Richard
M. Daley
Richard
M. Daley is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, William M. Daley’s
brother, was the Chicago (IL) mayor,
Michelle Obama was his staffer, and Valerie B. Jarrett was his deputy chief
of staff.
Note: Mellody L. Hobson
is a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, William W. Bradley is
her mentor, the chairman for DreamWorks
Animation SKG Inc, a director at the Starbucks
Corporation, and a trustee at the Sundance
Institute.
Howard
D. Schultz was a director at the DreamWorks
Animation SKG Inc, and is the chairman & president & CEO for the Starbucks Corporation.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Sundance Institute, the NPR,
the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace (think tank), the Brookings
Institution (think tank), and the International Rescue Committee.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and a
benefactor for the NPR.
Kinsey
Wilson was the EVP & chief content officer for the NPR, an executive editor for USA
Today, and is the editor for innovation & strategy for the New York Times.
Howard Wollner is
the foundation president for the NPR,
and was the SVP for the Starbucks Corporation.
William W. Bradley
is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace (think tank), Mellody
L. Hobson’s mentor, and a director at the Starbucks Corporation.
Jessica Tuchman Mathews was the president of
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), an honorary
trustee at the Brookings Institution
(think tank), is a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg
(think tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Ed Griffin’s interview with
Norman Dodd in 1982
(The investigation into the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace uncovered the plans for population
control by involving the United
States in war)
William
M. Daley is Mayor Richard M. Daley’s
brother, a member of the Commercial Club
of Chicago, was the chief of staff for the Barack Obama administration, and a trustee at Northwestern University.
Christine E.
Brennen is a trustee at Northwestern
University, and a sports columnist for USA
Today.
Valerie B. Jarrett
was Mayor Richard M. Daley’s deputy
chief of staff, is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, the senior adviser for the Barack Obama administration, and a friend of Michelle Obama.
Michelle
Obama is a friend of Valerie B.
Jarrett, married to Barack Obama,
an advocate for the ONE Campaign, was
Mayor Richard M. Daley’s staffer,
and a lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP.
Barack
Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin
LLP, and the president of the Barack
Obama administration.
Robert
M. Gates was the defense secretary for the Barack Obama administration, and is a director at the Starbucks Corporation.
R.
Eden Martin is counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP, and the president of the Commercial
Club of Chicago.
Newton
N. Minow is a senior counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP, and a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago.
Cyrus F. Freidheim
Jr. is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Sheryl K.
Sandberg was a trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), a director at the Starbucks Corporation, and is a director at the ONE Campaign.
ONE
Campaign is a partner with the International
Rescue Committee.
Harold E. Ford Jr. was an overseer at the International
Rescue Committee, is a political commentator for MSNBC, and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think
tank).
Morning
Joe is a MSNBC program.
Starbucks
Corporation is a sponsor for Morning
Joe.
Steven L. Rattner
is a frequent guest on Morning Joe,
and a trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank).
Henry A. Kissinger is an overseer at the International
Rescue Committee, a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg
(think tank), the founder of Kissinger
Associates, Inc., and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant
(think tank).
Timothy F.
Geithner is a director at the International Rescue Committee, was an
overseer at the International Rescue Committee, a researcher at Kissinger Associates, Inc., and the treasury
secretary for the Barack Obama
administration.
Joshua Cooper
Ramo is the vice chairman for Kissinger
Associates, Inc., and a director at the Starbucks Corporation.
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