Let’s All Make Fun of Starbucks’ Idea to Force Baristas to Talk Race with Customers
Starbucks Wants Baristas to Talk Race with CustomersGo on:
Beginning on Monday, Starbucks baristas will have the option as they serve customers to hand cups on which they’ve handwritten the words “Race Together” and start a discussion about race…
Schultz has met with almost 2,000 Starbucks employees since then in cities hit most directly by racial tension and anti-police brutality protests in the last year, including Oakland, St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Seattle, where Starbucks is based. Cognizant of what a powder keg the issue of race is, Starbucks says its baristas will be under no obligation to engage with customers on the topic. The goal is simply to foster discussion and an exchange of ideas.
So it’s basically the opposite of McDonalds’ dumb dance-for-your-meal campaign. Twitter, deploy!
How could this go wrong? I mean, name just ONE way this could go wrong. http://t.co/ERYXQ2IfuT (via @elongreen)
— Michael Schaub (@michaelschaub) March 17, 2015
"White people take their venti lattes like this. Black people take their venti lattes like *this*." http://t.co/MuZQKHoVXZ
— Elon Green (@elongreen) March 17, 2015
Customer: I'll have a venti light roast…
Race conscious Starbucks barista: Don't you mean (removes sunglasses) Martin Luther King size?
— Erin Gloria Ryan (@morninggloria) March 17, 2015
The only folks happy about Starbucks baristas discussing race with customers are the suits who run it. Feel-good liberalism at its worst.
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) March 17, 2015
@tressiemcphd first private schools, now Starbucks. Where else where we be gifted with narcissistic conversations "about race?"
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) March 17, 2015
starbucks' collaboration with charles murray on their bell curve caramel frappachino seems ill advised, to say the least
— America's Ape (@swarthyvillain) March 17, 2015
I'm planning on talking to my Starbucks barista about how she needs to be in a union.
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) March 17, 2015
[h/t Fortune]
[Image via Bocman1973 / Shutterstock.com]
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