If you’re thinking about popping into a Starbucks today for a caffeine fix and a privilege-check, you’ll only get one of them. Unfortunately, it’s the coffee.
In a marketing fiasco that could rank right up there with “New Coke,” Starbucks has ditched its plan to have baristas ignite a national discussion on race after critics advised the chain its view of black and white should revolve around coffee and milk.
The baristas had begun writing “Race Together” on customers’ cups, as a means of starting a conversation with customers, but the practice ended Sunday after just one week, said company spokesman Jim Olson.
So now the lowest-level employees at Starbucks are no longer expected to humiliate themselves just because bored billionaire Howard Schultz is ashamed of being white? Oh well. Gone too soon, #RaceTogether. Gone too soon.
This is after Starbucks placed a race-reeducation insert inside two million copies of Friday’s USA Today. Pay attention, racists, because there will be a quiz:
I can't parody leftism any better than @Starbucks has. Literally calling for quotas on your FRIENDS. pic.twitter.com/TLY9n1pr3w
— Jim Treacher (@jtLOL) March 21, 2015
Most of these questions don’t really apply to me, because my answers would be “zero” regardless of the person’s race. But asking you to divvy up your friends and acquaintances by skin color seems kinda racist, yeah?
“Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are…” That used to be a cliché. Now it’s a requirement.
Update: Howard Schultz says, “Hey team, we meant to do that!”