When I think of Starbucks, I think of stores that are about as diverse as the NY Times Editorial Board, Organizing For America, and all manners of typical liberal groups. In other words, not much
(Washington Post) In partnership with USA Today, Starbucks has launched a week-long campaign under the banner “Race Together†to get staff and customers talking about race. In a video message, Schultz urges “partners†to write the phrase on their paper cups “to facilitate a conversation between you and our customers.†A USA Today supplement, set to be published March 20, includes a number of “conversation starters,†including the fill-in-the-blank question: “In the past year, I have been to the home of someone of a different race ___ times.â€
The idea for “Race Together†apparently came from employee forums Schultz launched last December. The first was impromptu, inspired by the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the conversations about racial inequality that surrounded them. It went so well, Schultz said, that the company organized similar events in five other cities.
“At the end of every open forum partners have come up to me and said ‘We must do more,’†Schultz said in his video. “… The fact that you have asked me, encouraged me, is why I have so much faith that this is the right decision for our company.â€
I know Glenn Beck was talking about this on the radio (I saw the story earlier in the AM), telling people to go in to the stores. I’d suggest you ask why there are so few Starbucks in Black urban areas. But, hey, nothing like a discussion of race inside a lilly white coffee shop, eh? And getting nagged. No biggee for me, I stopped going to Starbucks and other premium coffee shops years ago, realizing how much money I was pissing away.
The Washington Post provides a few tweets for context
https://twitter.com/NewaHailu/status/577718920448086016
https://twitter.com/vidalwuu/status/577731504501055488
But, let’s remember that Starbucks is a private company, and can do what they want. They’ve already alienated legal gun owners and those who support traditional marriage. Of course, if Starbucks really wanted to talk about race they’d move their corporate headquarters from one of the Whitest cities in America to someplace like Detroit, Birmingham, or Baltimore. Or, hey, how about Ferguson!
Kemberlee Kaye at Legal Insurrection: Schultz’s efforts seem noble, but might be viewed as more legitimate were his reasons for entering the contentious race arena not predicated on blatant falsehoods and astroturfed race hustling.
Stephen Kruiser: They’re ruining sports for me. Now they’re ruining coffee. If Archer does a “very special episode†about global warming, I’m outta here.
Yes, why doesn’t Starbucks put more stores selling $5 cups of coffee in poor neighborhoods?
I stopped going to Starbucks years ago when I realized how good coffee could be when it properly roasted with quality beans to bring out the natural flavors, rather than hide them. Now I roast my own beans for $4 to $7 a pound. I’m sipping a Panama Emporium Estate while I type this. Roasted it yesterday. It tastes like blueberries over milk chocolate, with a strawberry finish. Perfect with a bowl of granola. Never a need for cream and sugar with coffee like this. If Starbucks roasted these beans, they would taste like carbon. Because, consistency in flavorlessness is what they are about. Covering up the flavors of poor beans with long roasting times.
Interesting. Jeff is saying that Starbucks is coffee shop for The Rich and that Blacks are all too poor to afford Starbucks. A rather racist statement, Jeff.
When Starbucks sells a coffee, it’s usually a house blend, or they sell it by roast level and country. Medium Roast Columbia, or something like that.
That’s like selling wine by saying “California Red Wine”, which doesn’t say anything at all to people who care whether it is a sublimely rich and smooth Phelps Insignia or a sour “Coastal” sales team reception wine .
It’s important to Jeff and his crowd to compartmentalize the world into rich and poor, into skin colors, into political beliefs, etc. It’s so much easier to understand the world when you can divide it into subgroups and then stereotype them, and ultimately to place each group into one of two buckets: “Oppressors”, and “Opressed”. Starbucks = Oppressor, Coffee Farmers and Black People = Oppressed.
I didn’t mention race, y’all did.
Not many Starbucks in poor, lily white counties in Kentucky and WV either. I suspect that Starbucks puts stores where they expect people to buy their coffee. Duh. I’m guessing they have lower density in Utah, too.
But since you injected race, why shouldn’t Starbucks address American racism at its source – white people?
Seattle is 66% white, which is less white than American in general.
Your argument that Starbucks can’t discuss America’s racial divide unless they move their HQ to a city with more Blacks is a non sequitur (less politely, a dumb, dumb argument meant to smear the other side and end the debate).
Why can’t you argue the issues?
In the past year I have been to the house of someone of a different race zero times.
Now, does that signify that I’m a horrible raaaaacist, or that no one of another race has invited me to his home, or that I live in a small town that is 99.94% white?
Dana,
Where do you live, if you tell then expect that a large influx of people will be there soon. We had a doctor, true story, that got fed up. He grabbed his yard man and threw him in the car and started driving north. When he reached a state where the people said, what is that, he moved there. It was South Dakota.
This is looking like fertile territory for Stormfront recruiting
J-“Why shouldn’t Starbucks address American racism at its source-white people?” As Jeffery admirably proves JGlanton’s point- “It’s important for Jeff and his crowd compartmentalize the world into rich and poor, into skin colors, into political beliefs, ect.”
the j’s of the world eat too much bologna .. rots the brain
Coincidentally, a story out of SD today.
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/03/south-dakota-vendor-banned-selling-racist
It’s admirable that you imagine that everyone is equal, with equal rights and treatment. Unfortunately, that’s not the reality. Do you really think that liberals and conservatives are equivalent? Really?
This is just another example of conservative projection.
It’s conservatives who worry incessantly about Muslims cutting throats, Mexicans takin’ your jobs and Black men banging conservative women. That Caucasian, Conservative, Christians comprise the Republican Party is not a coincidence.
Well, you’ve done nothing to disprove JGlanton’s point. And yes, everyone does have equal rights. Sorry to burst your bubble. What everyone doesn’t have is equal outcomes, much to the chagrin to liberals. That’s why they enact racist programs like Affirmitive Action. “Do you really think liberals and conservatives are equivalent?” No, I don’t J, because I haven’t lost my mind.
It is SOOO cute that you think that! I doubt you really believe that, but it’s the party line, which goes something like this:
Here in the melting pot, everyone is created equal, with equal rights, with equal opportunity and equal access to the tools to be great, so the only reason an individual can fail is their own lack of effort, their own lack of intelligence, their own lack of preparation. Unless you’re a poor white man, in which case the feckless federal gov’t and their Affirmative Action for Blacks, their coddling of illegal Mexicans and their promotion of women all comes at your expense.
Teach would you like me to drop in the next time I pass through and verify your own racial diversity in hiring ?
Actually, John, when I was with AT&T my diversity hiring wad pretty darned good. Though, I didn’t hire because Black, female, Hispanic, etc. I hired based on best candidate.
J- “so the only reason a person can fail is their own lack of effort, their lack of intelligence, their own lack of preparation…….” I see. As opposed to liberals expalining away a person’s lot in life soley by racism, homophobia, Islamaphobia, blah, blah….blah. By the way, do you think everyone has equal intelligence, equal effort or equal preparation? Of course they don’t.
John-would you like to drop by all the elite universities (or, really almost any university) in this country to make sure they live up to all the “diversity” mandates that they expouse? Could you check to see if they’re hiring as many conservative professors as liberal professors?
Are you proposing that conservatives be made a specially protected group, and that universities adopt a quota system, instead of hiring on merit?