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.
...but the coffee is black....so....right???
Gee, I wish I went to Starbucks. Even once in a decade or so. So I could quit them and leave them boycotted.
But since they get no money from e as it is....
LGBT OMG WTF BBQ! Is BAR-B-Q now used to describe gender of lack thereof? I like mine with Open Pit Sauce, please./
It’s genius though.
(I can’t possibly understand how, I’m clueless)
But they sell a Corolla at a Lexus price year after year after year and make big bucks.
If I were a person like that fellow who likes to make the funny gotcha videos with liberal icons, I would be very tempted to wander into one of those bigbux places with cameras rolling and when prompted by the debt-burdened college grad, go into a well rehearsed riff on a certain historical speech, finishing off with a dramatic, “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the contents of their *wallets*, and that ladies and gentlemen is why I am here today in this fine establishment.”
Or something more funny than that.
Shucks…I wanted to have a barista write on my cup: Our CEO is an A**hole.
I went to one once. I found their coffee to taste over roasted (Burnt). Went home and ground up some of my whole bean Eight O’Clock coffee and brewed up a pot just to get the burnt taste of SB’s out of my mouth!
I never go to Starbucks but this campaign has me thinking about dropping in for a cup of their coffee just so that I have a chance to air some of my thoughts about race relations in America today. I’m tired of all this crap about white privilege, micro aggressions, false accusations, etc. Is there a time limit on how much race conversation we can have with our coffee?
Best part of the article, ROFL.
They lost me when they said, “If you support traditional marriage, we don’t want your business”.
I took them at their word, and I stopped shopping at their stores.
Funny thing; when I pass there leaving a shopping center, it’s not so crowded anymore.
At the rate they’re going (including the Race Together), they will be out of business in about 5 years.
There are several Dunkin Donuts locations near me that have been remodeled in the last 6-9 months. Now they have comfortable seating and Wi-Fi access ... which means they now have the same amenities that draw a lot of folks to Starbucks, and can offer better coffee for a lower price, too.
I’m not a fan of Starbux for a lot of reasons but your forecast of their doom appears premature.
Their same store sales was +6% in 2014. In the Era of Baraq, that’s pretty solid for anybody selling anything.
I felt bad for the employees stuck with this stupid idea. Chances are, you’re busy enough at your job without having to debate some activist (and only an activist-type is going to take up this offer; everyone else just wants their coffee) over white privilege or whatever.
Beyond that, I can only imagine what the HR department at Starbucks must have thought. Debating a touchy subject like race in the workplace? Goodness help the first conservative barrista who doesn’t agree with a liberal customer-activist. I can see the lawsuits from here.
Dumb idea. I’ll never understand how a guy can become a billionaire, and yet be so dumb (see also: Mike Bloomberg).
Their coffee is horrid. It tastes burned and acidy. Ugh. I don’t know how anyone can actually drink that stuff.
Maybe I’m dreaming; but with the advent of a more conservative nation, I would hope we would build a better mousetrap - with less liberal propaganda.
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