Posted on 03/23/2015 1:42:05 PM PDT by Kaslin
Espresso makes you hyper. When you’re hyper you sometimes make rash decisions. When you make rash decisions you usually regret it. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz evidently chugged a Venti-five-shot-double-pump-skinny-vanilla-latte last week before announcing Starbucks’ new “RaceTogether” public relations stunt. As he describes it, the über-”progressive” head of the multi-billion dollar corporate mega-giant that brews mediocre coffee by the silo full and whose leadership is almost exclusively white – hopes to “start a discussion” about American race relations. (I’m pretty sure that discussion has been ongoing for a couple centuries, but, hey, I was wrong that one time about that other thing.)
The way I understand it is that when you unsuspectingly wander into any of your 12 local Starbucks locations, your official Starbucks barista will write “RaceTogether” with his official Starbucks Sharpie on the side of your official Starbucks cup and then, as you try to avoid eye contact and grab your Splenda and 2% on the way out the door while formulating an excuse for why you’re already late to work, he’ll ask you if you’d like to have a discussion about race.
Bad idea? The cost of white privilege? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just how I’m wired, but I kind of relish the opportunity to explain to a bearded, ghost white, heavily pierced and tatted 29-year-old aspiring LGBTOMGWTFBBQ Gender Studies professional that the whole “Hands up Don’t Shoot™” meme was a cultural Marxist hoax rooted in, as are all things “progressive,” a bunch of pretend stuff.
Anyway, the stunt has backfired magnificently. It’s had the exceptionally rare outcome of bringing together conservatives, “progressives” and people of every race, color and creed to universally mock Schultz and Starbucks corporate and resolve, perhaps for the first time, to use the drive-thru.
Maybe that was the plan all along.
This, of course, is just more empty, liberal, feel-good hashtag activism designed to endear a detached corporate giant to today’s easily-led-astray millennial (and younger) generation and to make people who otherwise don’t do squat feel like they’re doing something meaningful. Conforming to “non-conformity” feels good. It’s all the rage. Starbucks is playing it up. It’s a commercial PR ploy – a business calculation that missed the mark by a Mississippi mile. Honestly, I actually feel bad for the young people who work there. It’s got to be embarrassing. In my experience, and all joking aside, most Starbucks employees are very nice and hardworking folks.
Even still, since Starbucks has already taken the plunge, let’s go with it. While the idea of “a national discussion on race relations” is worn, if we’re going to be forced into it while trying to wash down our rubbery, microwaved-to-900 °F sausage-egg sandwich, then the whole #RaceTogether refrain is overly broad and lacking in substance. Let’s drill down some. Here are three alternatives I’d like to see scribbled on my cup:
#FactsMatter
Veteran journalist and professional blogger Robert Stacy McCain suggested this one. “There is a world of difference between (a) calling attention to legitimate grievances and (b) dishonestly exploiting those grievances.”
You listening, Starbucks?
Speaking of dishonest exploitation, and as reluctantly admitted to by the Washington Post’s very liberal Jonathan Capehart, two “must-read investigations” released by the Justice Department on the officer shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, “forced” him “to deal with two uncomfortable truths: Brown never surrendered with his hands up, and Wilson was justified in shooting Brown.” Moreover, said Capehart, “Brown fought with the officer and tried to take his gun. And the popular hands-up storyline, which isn’t corroborated by ballistic and DNA evidence and multiple witness statements” was a total fraud perpetrated by race-baiting hucksters like Al Sharpton, Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Capehart’s fellow liberal media agitators and everyone else who stands to gain by fanning the flames of racial division.
Here’s another fact that matters. Let’s #RaceTogether and grieve the tragic reality that 93 percent of blacks murdered in America are murdered by other blacks. I, for one, believe that #AllLivesMatter, whether they’re tragically taken in self-defense by a white cop, or brutally taken over disputed drug territory by a black gangbanger.
#BlackBabiesMatter
Hi, Barista Bob. Why, yes, I would love to discuss race. Did you know that the most dangerous place on earth for an African-American is in her mother’s womb? The No. 1 killer of blacks in the U.S. is abortion homicide. There isn’t a close second. This is by design. Like Adolf Hitler, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a devote eugenicist who once said, “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” To this day Planned Parenthood continues Sanger’s legacy of ethnic cleansing. “Seventy-eight percent of [Planned Parenthood] clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12 percent of the population, but 35 percent of the abortions in America.” Planned Parenthood’s founder claimed, “Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated.”
Barista Bob, can we #RaceTogether on the idea that African-Americans aren’t human weeds and shouldn’t be exterminated – that is, dismembered alive – at the rate of thousands per day?
#Colorblind
The only people who still view the world in terms of skin color are, typically, Democrats, “progressives” (read: cultural Marxists) and those racial minorities who allow themselves to be politically exploited by these primarily white liberals – who become dependent on government assistance. Sure, there are still racists out there (your KKK and neo-Nazi-types), but they’ve been largely marginalized in our culture. And well they should. What’s troubling is that today many of the most powerful people in America remain, self-servingly so, obsessed with skin color.
So, thank you, no, Starbucks. I’d rather not discuss race. I’m not seeing it. And I’m teaching my kids to be colorblind as well. “White privilege?” Hardly. My mom grew up in the sticks of Oklahoma in little more than a shack. She had no indoor plumbing. At times she didn’t even have a pair of shoes to wear. She worked her butt off to escape those circumstances. That’s how I was raised. That’s how I’m raising my children.
A pretty smart fellow once said that he hoped to “one day live in a nation where [people] will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Many of us are living there now.
The rest of you can join us any time.
Believe me, I don’t understand Starbux at all, other than that the folks running it are way smarter than I am.
It’s pure capitalism, nobody had to go there and spend money there, and they are a huge success.
And it’s not like a one time purchase, their success has to be based on repeat customers.
The bad thing is that you went in their store the first place
;o)
I like the coffee, and I buy it in the K-cups for brewing at home. We don’t have a Starbucks in my town (ironically, our many liberals have kept it out because they hate evil chain stores, even though they have been proven to increase business overall). But when I go back to NYC or if I’m traveling, I’ll usually get my coffee there because it’s generally pretty good, pretty efficient, and you don’t get the precious attitude you get from some cute little coffee houses.
I just want a cup of coffee, for Pete’s sake, not to have to sign up against “climate change” (a frequent cute coffee house cause) or suffer through bad coffee because the place supports so many “good” causes. Starbucks, unfortunately, hos just moved out of the decent place to get a hassle-free cup of coffee into the stupid cute but confrontational coffee house with a chip on its shoulder.
The people I really feel bad for are the employees ... you can bet they don’t like this!
This is a great article! But I would have to say that today fact don’t matter. Emotions matter - and the stronger you “feel them” the righter your cause, or something like that. If we were going to talk about facts then the history of the Democrat Party should be listed complete with all the votes in both house of Congress showing how the Dems voted to keep blacks down. And please, please include Lyndon B. Johnson’s famous quote. The Republicans should have that plastered on every billboard in America. Maybe Starbucks would like to discuss that one.
Hysterical fallout. The “brave” billionaire who runs Starbucks thought it was a good plan for his lowest-paid employees to discuss politics with customers. The ridicule was so overpowering that the “brave” billionaire called off his plan - yet the “brave” billionaire was too cowardly to take questions about this catastrophically stupid plan.
Sorry, I don’t respond to guilt-tripping.
I happen to love their coffee - which I brew in my own coffee pot at home. If that upsets people - oh well.
“Starbucks features average coffee,”
In my not so humble opinion, you feature a tendency to be overly generous in your appraisal. I have never been in a Starbucks but I have tried a sample of their coffee that they sent in the mail and if that is average I don’t want to ever see any BELOW average coffee. I tend to agree with the “Ultimate Jew” on the quality of Starbucks coffee. To me it is the supreme example of the triumph of marketing over common sense.
I agree with the Lexus price but you have really been unfair to the Corolla.
You make a good point.
I’ll have to improve my analogy.
The black coffee is contained inside a WHITE cup....proof that the white man is trying to keep the black man down!
Customers can buy their effluent and feel good about what special persons they are, and how much other people will be inclined to see them similarly. For a limited but desperate population, it works every time.
Good post.
Sheer genius biz plan.
Dispensed daily at 21,000 locations.
“you feature a tendency to be overly generous in your appraisal”
Perhaps I did. Starbucks has many different coffees. The times I have been to Starbucks there were at least two different coffees to choose from. These are just coffees. It does not include the huge number of overpriced coffee based drinks they sell.
If I had been there enough to really evaluate their products they may rate much worse than just average.
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