Friday, March 20, 2015

CNS News - Jen Kuznicki: Why Is There No Starbucks Coffee House in Selma? (or Ferguson, Central Detroit, East St. Louis ...)

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Why Is There No Starbucks Coffee House in Selma?

Starbucks executive Corey duBrowa recently deleted his twitter account, after what he said were abusive comments as a result of his push for a campaign in which his baristas were to engage with customers about race relations.
"I was personally attacked through my Twitter account around midnight last night and the tweets represented a distraction from the respectful conversation we are trying to start around Race Together," duBrowa said. "I’ll be back on Twitter soon."
But the whole point of the conversations he promoted, was to get people talking about what is uncomfortable, and controversial.  It seems childish to delete his own twitter account over it.
A story from fastcocreate.com showed just what happens when you walk into a Starbucks wanting to engage in a discussion on race.  Pretty much nothing.  The baristas are young kids, just trying to do their job and get through the day, and are kind of embarrassed to even bring it up.  I kind of feel sorry for them.
It is the fault of the mindless executives who put the Starbucks’ employees through this, which is why I’m not a big fan of boycotts.  It’s not the employee’s fault, they just have a job to do, and the money at the top is usually not as hurt as the kids making coffee.
But a friend of mine named Paul made a brilliant point.
If Starbucks wants us to talk about race, let’s start with why they don’t have Starbucks Coffee Houses in some of America’s cities that are mostly black, or have had a racially charged history?
My friend looked up various cities, and found that there are no Starbucks Coffee Houses in many of them. ...