Really Starbucks? Stick to serving double latte grandes with soy milk and keep race relations out of it. I don’t need to have a discussion about this controversial topic over my early morning cup of Joe.
The only thing I want to do at Starbucks is order, pay for my overpriced cup of coffee, and leave — not wait while baristas and customers engage in a “discussion” on the state of the country’s race relations.
The latest from the caffeine giant, aside from its new delivery service and putting alcoholic beverages on the menu (I kid you not), is a plan from the company’s chief executive Howard Schultz for a “Race Together” initiative, where his baristas are encouraged to discuss race relations with patrons.
The plan is for employees to brew up the morning grind, present the customer with a steaming hot environmentally friendly green cup inked with the handwritten message “Race Together,” and then “engage” about “the perennially hot-button subject” of race relations.
This city does not need an army of socially conscious baristas serving up a dose of ethics in the morning.
First off, they ain’t qualified in a professional sense, and second, the morning commute ain’t no time to have a discussion that will polarize a cafe full of thirsty, caffeine-deprived individuals who only want to get a cup of Joe and go to work. They do not want to engage in anything more than, “How much? Thank you, and have a nice day.”
Schultz addressed his workers with a video where he dismissed the notion that race was too hot a topic to tackle at the cash register ahead of a line of hurried customers. “I reject that. I reject that completely,” he said. “It’s an emotional issue. But it is so vitally important to the country.”
That is the only thing I can agree with you about on this, Mr. Schultz. Yes, it is emotional — and it is vitally important to the country — too important to resolve over my morning jolt of caffeine.
You are more than welcome to take your profits and provide funds to improve race relations, provide your 40-percent-minority employees with living wages and fair work conditions, and put whatever ads you want in the papers. You are not welcome to stir in a controversial debate in my coffee. Just stir in two sugars and maybe a drizzle of caramel.
Not for Nuthin™, but if Schultz is so hell bent on discussing this topic in his establishments, then he should open up a corner watering hole somewhere and hire bartenders — who are trained in dispensing the wisdom of the ages, over a pint of ale, the way they have since the first grog was ever served to the first bar-fly — and leave the baristas to serve my double latte grande with soy milk. Thanks and have a nice day.
Follow me on Twitter @JDelBuono.
