Hey, what's the deal with racism?

Stupid Starbucks. I was all set on writing today about the #RaceTogether initiative that turned out to be a #StupidIdea when the company had to up and cancel it. Race is a hot button subject so I was going to offer a few tips on starting a conversation about race with servers in an inoffensive way, such as:

“Hey, what’s the deal with racism?”

“See, white people order coffee like this. And black people order coffee like this.”

“I’m sorry, but I thought slavery was just terrible.”

“Ferguson, am I right?”

“Systemic racial discrimination. Ugh, I can’t even.”

Now the coffee company goes and ruins my post by canceling the whole thing. I’m really amazed nobody who worked at this company actually realized how dumb the whole thing was before they announced it. I guess nobody wants to be honest with the boss when he’s on a roll about something. Nobody in the company realized that people on their way to work don’t want to stop and chat about racial issues when they are in a hurry to get coffee. Similarly, nobody realized that busy servers had better things to do than strike up a chat about a loaded issue.

I’m not sure that Starbucks customers were the audience for this anyway, not because of any racism but because some of them seem so picky. Thom will stomp around in high dudgeon if they write Tom on his coffee cup or (God forbid) serve him half-caff instead of one-third caff like he requested. You really want to introduce a touchy subject with someone like that?

Of course, rather than just admit that the whole idea is completely asinine, Starbucks is patting itself on the back by saying, “At least we started conversation,” which is the refuge of any company that does something dumb. What struck me about #RaceTogether is how very unnecessary it is. The company acted like nobody out there is discussing race and we need an outlet for it.

The truth is, people everywhere are constantly discussing race. People talk about race-related issues around the dinner table or at parties or bars or churches or in work. You probably can't read a major newspaper or magazine or website without finding something related to race. Ferguson and Eric Garner were conversations on race; they were loud and ugly conversations at times but they are still a prominent recent example of talking about race. For years some people have talked about having a “national conversation about race” as if we’ll have some nationally televised town meeting where Patty from Peoria can call in and chat about racial profiling with … I guess some sort of race panel? We need discussion to continue but I don’t see why that requires coffee cups.

My point is, for good and for ill, this conversation has been buzzing in America for decades if not centuries and it never needed a latte to facilitate it.