This Will End Poorly: Starbucks Encourages Its Baristas to Rap About Race Relations With Customers

I'd like a half-caf vente and to have my Privilege thoroughly Checked.

CEO Howard Schultz is encouraging his employees to bring up the hot-button issue -- his latest foray into controversial topics.

Starbucks SBUX 0.23% CEO Howard Schultz has never shied away from involving his company in controversial debates, whether those debates are about same-sex marriage, or gun control, or U.S. government gridlock.

But the executive, who oversees a coffee empire with 4,700 U.S. stores, has now taken on arguably the most polarizing political debate in the United States: race relations.

Starbucks published a full page ad in the New York Times on Sunday -- a stark, black, page with a tiny caption "Shall We Overcome?" in the middle, and the words "RaceTogether" with the company logo, on the bottom right. The ad, along with a similar one on Monday in USA Today, is part of an initiative launched this week by the coffee store chain to stimulate conversation and debate about the race in America by getting employees to engage with customers about the perennially hot button subject.

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In a video addressing Starbucks’ nearly 200,000 workers, 40% of whom are members of a racial minority, Schultz dismissed the notion that race was too hot a topic business-wise for Starbucks to tackle.

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Schulz will discuss Starbucks' "Race Together" initiative at the company's annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday.

So. There you go.

At Hot Air, a series of real questions about race Schultz should now be peppered with, as should his Ambassadors of Race Relations/Baristas.

I'm so tired of these phony "Conversations of Race" which are either soft-soap afterschool specials -- we're all the same inside -- or are leftwing Social Justice Warrior Check Your Privilege bullshit.

posted by Ace at 12:54 PM

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