Starbucks Wants To Talk About Race

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* It would be hilarious if someone from Steve’s readership could conduct a street-level social science experiment by getting hired by Starbucks and, you know, talking about race with customers who just want to buy coffee, but talk about race from a totally non-creationist way.

Countdown to getting fired.

* “I’d like a mocha frappucino please, and the Bell Curve has never truly been debunked.”

* I’ve decided to ask the barrista, if she puts a racial message on my coffee cup, to write three things and then to guess what it means: 85, 35,000, and 52%.

I will then ask them to match those numbers to the number of white women raped by blacks, percentage of all homicides by blacks and, of course, the average black IQ. That should get the dialogue moving along nicely.

* I’ve been waiting for someone to discuss the race relations caught in this cell phone video from a day or two ago:

It looks like a black lady attacking a young white girl and her even younger brother for being white. The white girl keeps asking what she did.

Maybe there is more to this clip that I don’t understand, but it looks to me like racial violence incited by Holder.

If videos of racist comments are the top news at Google News and other news sites for hours, this deserves more than just liveleak.

Maybe it did get more attention somewhere, too, but I didn’t see that.

Maybe we can discuss it at Starbucks.

* This will go over sooooo well. Because if there is one thing that the upwardly aspiring yuppie soccer moms who frequent Starbucks want, its a lecture on how racist they are, by a pierced and tattooed twenty something who is an indie alt-rocker and drug addict in their spare time.

Finally, the guy who came up with the Edsel and the guy who came up with New Coke are breathing a sight of relief. They are not the most boneheaded corporate moves any more.

* Maybe they can show their commitment by opening up a shop in Ferguson. You can talk with the Baristas from behind bullet proof Plexiglas.

* Billionaire Schultz sure wants a lot from his $9.50 p/hr employees. I suppose he’s supplied them with crib sheets containing talking points and wise sayings. A couple local stores of theirs that I go to employed college students for a long time but in the past year I noticed a turnover in staff, going from college types to Hispanic and black workers with no higher education. I figured the managers decided on a new business model, that of hiring people with less options and thus less likely to be able to trade up. They’re pleasant enough serving coffee but really don’t seem the type to be able to impart much. Also, be careful of what you say; you don’t want someone spitting in your coffee.

* I bet I am the only person posting here who actually, often worked in “food service” although, back-in-the-day it was called: busing tables, waitressing, hostessing, cocktail waitressing, cashiering, etc. We also had to Windex-down all the surfaces & microwaves at the end of the shift….stock up the ketchups, s& p’s, napkin stacks, etc.

I worked throughout my teenage years, summer jobs, in between crappy corporate jobs I quit in NYC in the 80′s and early 90′s – it did finance some wonderful trips roaming the world; paid for tuition; bought a car I still have with that waitressing money, BUT, I had few, very rare, very good restaurant-owner-bosses as well…who would never have asked their employees to do something like what Starblachhh is trying to persuade their employees to do. They would not even insist we wear Halloween costumes on our shifts. They knew this was just a stepping-stone job and we were young & mercilessly rudderless…especially if you were younger than 32 (ok, I’ll be kind tonight). Also, our bosses in “food service” always assumed we were gonna GTFO as soon as a “real job” was within sight. One world-class NYC business owner actually encouraged his employees to go for that audition, interview, option as long as we covered the shift at his business. What a mensch. I still see his face even if he is long gone when I drink Jaegermeister.

The annoying thing is, most “food service workers,” baristas, bartenders, cocktail waitresses don’t really wake up every day thinking they are gonna “tweak” their walk-in customers to think about “saving the world,” in this case, starting spontaneous discussions about race, of all things. It is unfair, plain unfair. Most baristas are middle-class kids who are today’s indentured servants: saddled by high student debt/living in an expensive city where their hopeful, dream-job exists, in between their shift hours at a restaurant they are too embarrassed to name on date night/too embarrassed to tell their parents that after High$$$ PrivateU, they can’t get a “real” job with a degree in psychology/comparative literature/criminal justice/art (ouch, that’s SOOO personal), political science, etc., etc., etc. I love saying that ever since Yul Brynner said that!

It is unfair because it assumes the chump (that was me, often) that needs the job at a Starwhatever, must feel 100% genuine about hawking their wares combined with a condition, to a customer; basically cajoling a reluctant customer into talking. I must have worked at The sad-sack/bitter restaurant in NYC because the last thing my “tables” wanted, was for me to be cheerful and ask them how they were…and, if I thought engaging them to talk about what they thought about Mayor Dinkins, Koch, Prince, or Tompkins Square was gonna get me a better tip or lead them into a constructive conversation about race, well, they would have walked out instead.

I feel sorry for the employees of Starbucks who will feel coerced on some level, to go along with this idea. For the most part, people who show up at bars or coffee shops don’t want their consciousness raised, they want coffee or a drink, but silence most of all. A lot of “food service” customers don’t want to be disturbed, like bears in the wilderness…they really are there for the coffee and a refuge from their head exploding from other stuff happening in their very private lives. Most people do not like to bear their souls and say stuff unless they are wasted, crazy or both.

So, the sad part is, these Starbucks employees will feel compelled to do this because their supervisor is watching, their franchise owner wants to know the stats….and, they don’t want to lose this “stepping stone” job that is paying for their share of a $3000-a-month, 1 bedroom apt they share with 3 other people, and, probably cats & dogs & ferrets & old Halloween/Mardi Gras stuff.

* Okay, Senorita Barrista: Let’s talk about [this] in which one Urban-American named De’asia Watkins, 20, decapitates one 3-month old female Janiyah. And why black lives matter so very much.

* Why don’t they just screen interracial porn and see if anyone wants to talk about that?

* Steve Sailer: Here’s a question: Is working at the airport a black thing in general?

It is at LAX.

Maybe white people moved out of airport adjacent neighborhoods under the flight paths of noisy 1960s jets, so the airport is the convenient big employer for the blacks who moved in?

* “Two lattes please.”

“Yes sir. What size?”

“One small and one large. Sorry, my mistake, one White Crime Rate and one Black Crime Rate.”

* I’d be happy to discuss my experiences.

I’ve lived in Chicago 11 years now. Been robbed twice, once violently beaten during the robbery. Caught another guy trying to break into my apartment. Within two months of coming to the U.S. from Spain my girlfriend was also violently attacked and robbed.

What do all these crimes have in common?

* Michael Brown and the clerk at Quik Mart probably had their own racial dialogue:

C: Sir, those cigarillos don’t belong to you. You have to pay for them.
MB: Who you talk’n to Mother $#%$er?
C: Please Sir.
MB Get out of my way you little punk.
C: I will call the police
MB: Yah, what can they do?

Somebody needs to write a play.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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