It’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. meets corporate social responsibility meets fair trade claims, and it’s literally just around the corner. Earlier this week, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced a brilliant little community organizing scheme: to unify the many races of his apparently segregated clientele.
The everyday Starbucks goer may have already had the pleasure of a seeing a few more characters scratched onto his or her cup (in the signature black sharpie) Wednesday morning—in addition to the standard “2% milk” , “soy”, “non-fat”, “whipped” or “anything besides coffee.” Upon the request of Schultz, all Starbucks’ baristas a implored to write “Race Together” in print across the side of customers’ cups throughout the day. According to Mr. Shultz, the goal of the initiative is to get patrons and staff “talking about race.”
Perhaps Mr. Shultz is an acquaintance of Cornell alum Bill Nye ’77, who just this past month expressed on Bill Maher’s ’78 nightly program that the key to peace in the Western world and Central Europe with regards to deterring the spread of Islamic terror, is to “get to know [their] neighbors.”
Not to discredit Mr. Shultz’s “altruistic” intent by comparing it to Mr. Nye’s, as the initiative seems quite positive, but the recent announcement and implementation of the “Race Together” movement has met much more criticism than praise over the past two days–not only externally (much of which has been over social media), but internally as well.
In an article published by Think Progress, a concerned black, gay Starbucks barista named Jaime Prater expressed how he supports the altruism of the initiative, but ultimately believes that the workplace is no such place to be having these highly personal and ideological discussions. He mentions that the “Race Together” initiative simply “[puts baristas] in a very difficult situation[s].”
Much to my not-surprise, when I stopped in for my regular evening decaf at the local Starbucks in Collegetown at 402 College Avenue, the barista who handed me my cup of piping hot, decaffeinated, corporately social responsible brew looked away bashfully, for there was no such label reading “Race Together.”
But even if she had mustered up the moxie to write “Race Together” on my cup, and was able to successfully bring the movement to my previously familiarized attention, I would still be left scratching my head at why Howard Schultz just doesn’t open up a store in Ferguson, Missouri. The seemingly-ubiquitous chain lacks a single store in Ferguson, a predominantly African-American community and home to much racial tension in the current day.
The plan would be simple: Mr. Shultz could just transfer a team of white employees to the new location in Ferguson and engage in whatever “Race(ing) Together” actually is. Back at their previous stores, these employees might not engage in much meaningful dialogue because, according to Think Progress, the company is over 60% white anyways.
What could be more effective than discussing the implications of racism while sipping a capuchino? Where better to meet the black victims of racism than a Starbucks. Trading in their food stamps for a latte and brioche? As a working class liberal I simply shake my head at this nonsense. I know how conservatives must feel when they are harnessed with the ideas of Sarah Palin.