The good news, I guess, is that Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz realizes that racism is a problem. The bad news is that he thinks he has figured out what step to take next: He will urge baristas to write “race together” on your $5 coffee, and then they will explain to you about the need for compassion and about how we, as a nation, are better than that.
I wish I were making this up.
I am not.
“I’m asking you to perform that small gesture of writing ‘Race Together’ on a cup,”
Schultz urges Starbucks employees, in a video. “And if a customer asks you what this is, try and engage in a discussion, that we have problems in this country with regard to race and racial inequality, and we believe we’re better than this, and we believe the country’s better than this. And if this makes you have a conversation with a customer about the need for compassion, the need for empathy, the need for love towards others, if you can do that with one customer one day, then you’re making a significant difference as we go forward.”
“I think this is really important,” Schultz concluded, “not so much for the company, but for the country.”
The idea — that the revolutionary action needed in our nation’s continued entanglement with racism is
writing a phrase on a
Starbucks cup — is a frothy combination of one pump hubris, three pumps privilege and four shots of I-can’t-even.
Sure. That was what we were missing. Nailed it, Howard.
Again, it’s great that the chief executive of a major corporation is aware that this is a problem. I guess? But he must be pretty well cocooned from reality if this is the action he thinks is called for. This is so far from a good next step that a carrier pigeon flying from this to a good next step would die of old age. Does Schultz have any reason to think this is not going to go over like a lead balloon covered in “Serena” DVDs?
