Posted on 03/22/2015 9:04:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
Would you like a lecture on race with your latte?
That may sound like the name of a breakout session at a “White Privilege” conference or a new class at an Ivy League university, but it’s the new corporate policy at Starbucks. You now can be lectured by an otherwise unemployable gender studies graduate while paying $7 for a a penny’s worth of hot water run over a nickel’s worth of ground coffee beans and a splash of milk. What took Madison Avenue so long to cook up this marketing scheme?
I don’t drink coffee, never have. I’ve only been in Starbucks because whoever I was with needed to unburden themselves of some cash and get a refill on pretension. So I feel left out of the discussion CEO Howard Schultz wants to force on a groggy nation seeking a pick-me-up.
Since I’m being excluded by having taste and fiscal responsibility, I’ll have mine here. Maybe we can #RaceTogether…together.
That it’s 2015 and we’re still having this conversation is a testament to the failure of all of us. Race matters only because people make it matter. But people don’t make it matter because it’s an issue of serious or moderate concern. It matters because, like so many other things progressives foist on society, there’s money and power in it.
Republicans are called “insensitive” on race because they don’t tend to pander and patronize as much and because they treat individuals as individuals, not members of a race.
Democrats, on the other hand, see race first, last and always.
Pandering and patronizing are easy ways to endear yourself to people. Democrats are experts at that, and it has worked wonders for them. They routinely win large majorities of the black and Hispanic vote. For the objects of their pandering and patronizing, the return on that investment is less than stellar.
Name a city with a majority minority population and you will find Democratic leadership. Not just currently, but generationally. You also will find poverty, crushing in many areas. So what explains the loyal voting for a party that delivers only misery?
After more than a century of being a party of overt racism, the Democratic Party transformed to a party of covert racism. It went from using fear of bodily harm to keep minorities from voting to implying harm if minorities don’t vote a certain way. It may well be the most successful feat of mass human manipulation in history.
Find the pockets of highest unemployment in the country and you will find Democrats in charge. Find the highest concentrations of minorities and you will find Democrats in charge.
The disconnect between voting loyalty and results could not be higher. But that disconnect never has been threatened by reality. Democrats have successfully lied to minorities, particularly poor minorities, and those lies, no matter how obvious, only serve to reinforce that bond.
I, as a white person, never understood this. Since we’re having an honest discussion about race, this is perhaps the most important question I have: Why be loyal to what does not work?
The Detroit I knew growing up there never was the thriving economic powerhouse it was in its heyday. It did, however, get significantly worse. The bankruptcy in which it ultimately found itself did not happen overnight; it was the end of a long downward spiral. Yet at no point during that spiral did the city’s residents, particularly its black residents, think to switch their voting patterns.
With no conceivable way for Republicans to be worse than the Democrats who’d brought about Detroit’s collapse, with nowhere to go but up, the city’s black residents remain loyal to this day to Democrats for every level of governance. Why?
This perplexes me, but it is how it works. If Democrats routinely punch you in the face and take your wallet while telling you Republicans will punch you in the face and take your wallet, wouldn’t you give Republicans a chance, if only to see if they punch a little softer or take less of your money? Or wouldn’t you question the assertion that Republicans also punch and rob you considering all you have to go on is the word of the person punching and robbing you?
I don’t expect an answer from baristas with $150,000 in student loan debt, degrees in 1940s bisexual polar bear studies, similar blind loyalty to the Democrats because they don’t judge them for having stretched their earlobes to the size of hula-hoops and no understanding of how their life led them to slinging overpriced coffee.
I’m pretty sure I know the answers to my questions just like I have a strong suspicion about how that tofu-eating barista ended up where he is. I’m just thankful I don’t drink coffee so I don’t have to have a conversation with the latter about the former, or any conversation at all.
Starbucks board meetings are carryover Teachers Lounge raps. God save the Republic.
“Yet at no point during that spiral did the city’s residents, particularly its black residents, think to switch their voting patterns.”
That about sums it up...
Lets face it, we’re all jealous.
They figured out how to sell a Corolla at a Lexus price and make huge money, LOL.
I have some difficulty understanding the point system for NASCAR, so I think I would appreciate a lecture on that race.
I suggest folks go into Starbucks and order a grande black drip.
Starbucks makes less money than all the fancy stuff and one can say “I already had my discussion. I ordered a black drip.”
I went to Starbucks ONCE about 15 years ago, why anyone would pay $5 or more for a cup of coffee is beyond me.
Very true.
Yet, if you talk to one of these recent graduates, they will tell you it was GOP that invented the KKK and racism.
For the record, it was the Democrats.
No they don’t ... I buy their regular coffee there and it matches closely with QuikTrip (where I get regular coffee too). And if you get one of the Starbucks cups (which I did for $1.00) you get a discount on all your future coffee purchases using that cup.
If you “buy a Lexus” though, you’re going to pay for a Lexus. I buy a Corolla at Starbucks, and pay for a Corolla ... LOL ...
I ALSO buy similarly priced coffee (as at Starbucks) at QuikTrip. For those who don’t know it ... it’s the best convenience store/gas station in the USA, bar none! They also pay their clerks there $40,000 a year and the managers of each store $70,000 a year and all the employees there have full benefits and a retirement plan!
Here’s QuikTrip’s website for those who have never been to this FANTASTIC place! They have “Top Tier gasoline” too ... which is the ONLY gasoline I will get for my car!
About QuikTrip
http://www.quiktrip.com/About-QT
I think both Starbucks and QuikTrip are the best for what I do at each of them.
Obama and his associates have long dreamed of a race war to take over the country.
Tarbucks!
Taste the tar baby!
I know this won’t help much but Derek forgot to factor in the fallen nature of man. It makes manipulation using jealousy and greed in the name of fairness so much easier to go down and it makes manipulation without a conscience so much easier, as well. You have to give credit where it is due. The Dems are masters of their craft (of course they get no little help from the god of this fallen world) and execute it with precision. What would make it less easy is if there were a political party that was effectively challenging them but more importantly, a real army of God laying down their lives for their King, serving their fellow man in the name of Christ, calling out the evil in both parties and warning all of the coming judgement. There are exceptions but the church in the Western world has largely failed and has apostatized. Germany, where the reformation took place, Britain, once a stalwart of great Christian faith and America, much the same. What can you expect when truth no longer matters to a people? Evil runs unchallenged and it doesn’t end well. We’re about to find out.
oh brother...
There are no race problems at the Tim Horton’s that I frequent. You are likely to find people from 8-15 different nations in the coffee shops, at any given time.
The servers are usually Indian, Filipino or Indonesian. The customers are black, white and many shades in between. The fact that I live on the east side of Calgary may be why the customer base is ‘rainbow’ hued.
The fact that we have few race masterbaiters like ‘Hymietown’ Jackson and the Tax Cheat, likely has much to do with the peaceful coexistence of these groups.
Moochie needs to get Starbucks in her sights.
I’m sure that many of the young folks who are obese have gotten a lot of it from big sugary coffee drinks which are more like drinking a milkshake than a cup of coffee.
And all the muffins and pastries to go with it. Hardly a scrap of protein in the whole place, just sugar, fat and refined carbs.
I frequent Starbucks. No sign of the hashtag lecture.
Many have reached that point and are still labeled racist. When we disagree politically we are called racist. When we lament the breakdown of family values we are called racist. When we point out crime in certain areas we are called racist. The conversation is only going one direction, so why bother.
That is my conversation on race.
My sense is that, unless the barista is an idealistic leftist college student out to settle some horrible injustice in the world, very few baristas will participate in this "conversation." Especially at rush hour, they are trying to get customers through the line as quickly as possible, which won't happen if they're trying to engage every customer on the issue of race. Also, most of them won't be willing to initiate a conversation on a potentially controversial topic even if it *is* during a slow period. They don't want to upset the customers.
I don't know what the CEO was thinking when he came up with this idea... maybe it's just an early April Fools... maybe he needs to go on that undercover CEO show to be reminded of the reality of working in a customer service position.
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