Starbucks exec back on Twitter after #RaceTogether backlash
Source: CNN
Not everyone wants to discuss race relations while ordering their morning coffee, it seems.
That's the lesson Starbucks learned Tuesday after a torrent of Internet backlash was aimed at its new #RaceTogether campaign, which the coffee chain hoped would initiate a nationwide discussion of racial issues.
Corey duBrowa, the company's Senior Vice President of Global Communications, was personally attacked amid a storm of angry tweets. The executive deleted his Twitter account Monday night, only to rejoin the service less than 24 hours later.
"Last night I felt personally attacked in a cascade of negativity," duBrowa said in a post on Medium. "I got overwhelmed by the volume and tenor of the discussion, and I reacted."
Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/17/news/companies/starbucks-race-backlash/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
romanic
(2,841 posts)but racial dialogue during an order for a venti Iced Americano (with no room! - ya'll should know what that means if ur a starbux person 
) is very random.
Oktober
(1,488 posts)Take the order, take the money, make the drink, give me the drink...
Do these things quickly...
Don't ask me to smile, don't ask me my thoughts on Ferguson, don't ask if I've been to church or if I gave to goodwill....
Move it along...
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)We need to have a seriously long overdue discussion of race issues. And we need address some very real problems that exist because of them. So, if you are feeling all warm and fuzzy because he received backlash, bear in mind that the problems are still with us and each of us has a role in perpetuating or solving them. What is so freaking hard about treating others as equals?
Hoppy
(3,595 posts)If I go into a store for a cup or a pint or a yogurt or a ....... , I am walking in the door to relax and take my mind off my boss, my broken water heater, my child support payments, my car that didn't start this morning ... Do you get it? There is a time and a place for things.
Equally important is the problems this might cause for the schlub jerking the coffee who also might not want to have an argument while earning minimum wage + .50 and tip.
Carry on.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)I said that we all need to have a long overdue conversation in this country. Period.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)I increasingly believe that the very notion of "having conversations" on race is itself the dodge. We don't need conversation. We need policy, and that mighty desperately. For twenty some odd years we've been purporting to have "national conversations" on race and other matters. It's total bullshit. Policy. Policy. Policy. Fuck conversations. Or, as Nina Simone once put it, "You don't have to live next to me. Just give me my equality."
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Skidmore
(37,364 posts)acknowledging that there is a problem. Some of us do acknowdge the existence of inequality and injustice and try to live our lives and interact with others according to our beliefs in the equality of all humans. Others do not own their beliefs or behavior that reflects treatment of others as inferior or unworthy of consideration under a fair set of rules. To me neither equality or justice can be addressed without like people voicing their concern and demanding that it be addressed. That is at least one half of a conversation. Retreating to corners and hoping that some sort of telepathy occurs does not accomplish much except to more firmly entrench animosity. I may be naive, but I believe that we all need to keep working so that all peoples are treated equally. Nina Simone, in that quote, was having one half of a conversation with the rest of society and whoever heard or read the statement. It is up to us and all others to respond.
skypilot
(8,854 posts)It seems that saying we need to have "a conversation about race" has become the conversation about race.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)reimbursed by the company.
Pay:
http://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Starbucks-Barista-Hourly-Pay-E2202_D_KO10,17.htm
Note they receive stock bonuses and profit sharing.
Health Care even for part time workers:
http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/27/news/companies/starbucks-obamacare-schultz/?iid=EL
(Positive commentary from the CEO about Obamacare/ACA
College:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/15/news/economy/starbucks-schultz-education/index.html
Pay:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/19/news/companies/schultz-minimum-wage/?iid=EL
Not only paying more than the minimum wage, but supporting the president in raising the federal minimum wage.
He's encouraging people to have a conversation, if they want. Nothing more. If you don't want to participate, you don't have to.
Hoppy
(3,595 posts)My point is about the knuckle dragger who takes it out on the employee.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)There are ways to encourage the customer to start the convo, so no one feels pressured. The flyers on the counter are one way. Someone picks it up and starts reading through it, probably safe to acknowledge and feel out if they want to talk about it.
Hoppy
(3,595 posts)Nathan Bedford Forrester and David Duke walk into a Starbocks and pick up a flier and wish to have a conversation with the barista....
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)The chief exec suggested a shareholder sell his shares after he complained that the company's endorsement of legal unions between same-sex couples was hurting Starbucks' bottom line.
"If you feel respectfully that you can get a higher return (than) the 38% you got last year, it's a free country," Schultz said during the company's annual shareholders meeting on March 21.
"You could sell your shares at Starbucks and buy shares in other companies."
He sticks to his guns.
former9thward
(32,097 posts)He does not get to choose who invests or who is a customer. No one wants to get a lecture from a 20s barista who experience with real life is about zero.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)
anne neville
(12 posts)Young barista forced to make a racial statement to a racist who may or may not carry a weapon. I see the law suits coming...
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)
TeamPooka
(24,264 posts)Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)Yes, we have real problems. Your waiter deserves to make a living wage for providing you food and beverages without being obligated to tackle problems that confound us all.
HE WAS ASKING THE WAIT STAFF TO DO IT.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)is not discussed widely and/or only for a while after the murder by either citizens, James Byrd Jr....Tamir Rice, Aiyana Jones, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tarika Wilson, Trayvon Martin, Miriam Carey, Shareese Francis on and on will this outrage of murder and execution by the 'citizen' and representatives of local 'authority' continue without a CONSTANT dialog in this country about race. Without dialog this behavior by certain citizens will continue unabated. That dialog should be at the national level, state level and local level. And if certain people get bored, offended or outraged because of the continuous focus on race and the murder and executions that POC are faced with every day, tough.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)At the end of the Scoopes Monkey Trial, Williams Jennings Bryan made the following Speech about the trial:
“Causes stir the world, and this cause has stirred the world. It is because it goes deep. It is because it extends wide and because it reaches into the future beyond the power of man to see. Here has been fought out a little case of little consequence as a case, but the world is interested because it raises an issue, and that issue will some day be settled right, whether it is settled on our side or the other side. It is going to be settled right. There can be no settlement of a great cause without discussion, and people will not discuss a cause until their attention is drawn to it, and the value of this trial is not in any incident of the trial, it is not because of anybody who is attached to it, either in any official way or as counsel on either side.
“Human beings are mighty small, your Honor. We are apt to minify the personal element and we sometimes become inflated with our importance, but the world little cares for man as an individual. He is born, he works, he dies, but causes go on forever, and we who have participated in this case may congratulate ourselves that we have attached ourselves to a mighty issue.
“Now, if I were to attempt to define that issue I might find objection from the other side. Their definition of the issue might not be as mine is, and therefore, I will not take advantage of the privilege the Court gives me this morning to make a statement that might be controversial, and nothing that I would say would determine it.
“I have no power to define this issue finally and authoritatively. None of the counsel on our side has this power, and none of the counsel on the other side has this power. Even this honorable Court has no such power. The people will determine this issue. They will take sides upon this issue, they will state the questions involved in this issue, they will examine the information — not so much that which has been brought out here, but this case will stimulate investigation and investigation will bring out information, and the facts will be known, and upon the facts as ascertained the decision will be rendered, and I think my friends and your Honor, that if we are actuated by the spirit that should actuate every one of us, no matter what our views may be, we ought not only desire but pray that that which is right will prevail, whether it be our way or somebody else’s.”
In response to that speech the debate Bryan asked for did not occur, instead you saw a policy of refusing to even address the issue. Even today there is no debate. and the issue was NOT evolution, but WHO CONTROLS WHAT IS TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS. Should it be the parents through their elected officials OR experts (and then what experts? who is to determine who is an expert?, the people or someone else?). That is the debate Bryan wanted, but no one wanted to make it for sooner or later you get to the issue of actual democracy, i.e. should not the PEOPLE make such decisions? That was Bryan's position, democracy and open debate.
Bryan did not oppose the teaching of Human Evolution for biblical purposes, but on how Darwin's theories were used to justify the bloodshed of WWI (i.e. survivor of the fittest is best done in war for then only the most "Fit" survives such carnage). Bryan had strong Christian views, but it was Darwin who brought in the bible in the Scoops trial (Bryan brought in his copy of Darwin's books, which he had read and commented on for over 20 years by the 1920s, with many of his comments accepted and responded to, and in some cases accepted, by people who accepted Darwin's theories).
Thus the debate Bryan wanted on teaching Human Evolution in Public Schools is similar to any debate on race. Who should decide how much weight we give to a person's race? Should it be up to each individual or to society as a whole? Should people be permitted to discriminate based on race on a personal basis? Or should such racial discrimination be illegal? How much racial discrimination is society to permit AND how do we FORCE people who want to discriminate based on race NOT to discriminate based on race? Should racial discrimination be permitted if the local population support it, or should it be illegal even if the local population support it? How do you FORCE people NOT to discriminate? Who is to decide what is Racial Discrimination? Should the determination of racial discrimination be set by local people, or the Federal Government?
These are all question we have IGNORED for over 150 years (yes, even in the days of segregation these issues were ignored). Racial Discrimination will be ignored, for to address it means actually talking about it, including issues like racial profiling (i.e. Police going after African Americans because they are POOR in addition to being African Americans). People do NOT like discussing this type of topic, for it means actually making a decision about something. Thus people are attack who try to bring up such debates for to debate means to take a position and to take a position means others will take a different position. People HATE having to make up their mind, they prefer to ignore the problem and hope that someone else will make the decision for them. Thus no one, even today, no debates on the teaching of evolution for to do so is to bring up Social Darwinism which is what Bryan and his allies OPPOSED (Thus the Act involved in the Scoops trial did NOT ban teaching evolution, but only Human Evolution, but instead of a debate on teaching Human Evolution and its cousin Social Darwinism, we ended up with no teaching of evolution, something even Bryan opposed in 1926). Debate is needed in all subjects, so to make good social policy, but there has been no debate on race ever for to do so means addressing Slavery, and its lingering affects not only on African Americans by Whites (especially White Southern Males who are decedents of the whites that had to keep African Americans as SLAVES during Slavery, and then as less then citizens under Segregation). We also have to address the LONG TERM EFFECT of such treatment, i.e. higher rates or poverty among African Americans then other groups and higher crime rates among African Americans, but rates that are dropping as each new generation of African Americans are further away from the violence that was the norm under Slavery and Segregation (White RURAL Southerns from the deep South, were and are the most violent people in the US, followed by African Americans).
Side note: The Shadow South, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Tennessee have lower rates of WHITE violence then the deeper south. The main reason for this is all of these states were considered to far north for Cotton (With the exception of Tennessee and North Carolina) and thus did NOT have the history of violence that came with the massive expansion of slavery in the US from 1794 (the invention of the Cotton Gin) till 1861 (the Start of the Civil War). People are shock when they find out, slaves were still be smugger ed into the South as late as 1865 to be sold as legal slaves. That is how profitable slavery was to the Cotton States.
PersonNumber503602
(1,134 posts)Although perhaps not in the way intended. Either way, I do not understand why this would upset anyone. Unless they're making customer proclaim their beliefs on racial equality before getting their coffee, isn't it easy enough to completely ignore what is written on the cup? I couldn't see myself getting up in arms if they wrote some sort of biblical reference on it for whatever reason. If it bothered me that much, I'd just go to 7-11 instead.
anne neville
(12 posts)would have better coffee, too!
Dyedinthewoolliberal
(15,593 posts)If Starbucks wanted to provide the facilitation (and coffee) they could underwrite a nationwide 'Cup of Coffee and Discussion' on the subject of race. Put it out into the community instead of inside their stores. It would have more of an impact, in my opinion.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)
NoJusticeNoPeace
(5,018 posts)
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Democratic Party discussion forum. What makes dude think that folk outside of this realm ever want to have these discussions, period...and be honest about how much they hate? Ain't happening.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)backlash at all. The message "race together" not only is a positive message, but it also could have been interpreted to mean something other than racial matters (such as running). It's a shame that even the Starbucks' VP, a White guy, "extended his hand" (with a wink and nod to Common), but got it chopped off by the racists.
