Kevin Moore On Starbucks “Race Together”

My friend Kevin Moore draws and writes:

genocide-together-moore

I love the expressions Kevin drew, especially in panel 4.

This reminded me of the discussion in comments here, where a few posters were (rightly) concerned that Starbucks employees aren’t paid enough to make this part of their job.

Kevin comments:

Two hashtag campaigns launched last week on Twitter (where else?) addressing the topic of race. With #racetogether, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz thought it would be a neat idea to use coffee and his low wage workers to “start a conversation” that neither worker nor customer would ever want, regardless of their respective positions. As I write this I learn that Starbucks has abandoned the project, either recognizing it as a failure of good intentions or as a success in meme-driven marketing. “So long as they spell my name right” publicity, as it were.

The other campaign, #whitegenocide came about this weekend as almost a response to Starbucks invitation to converse about race — and thereby demonstrating exactly why no one wants to touch the subject in a commercial transaction. These trolls get enough attention on Twitter. And while I hate to give them anymore, as a source of friction in a cartoon, as a way to lampoon the kinds of absurd white victimization claims made by bigots afraid of any kind of inclusion of minorities — well, the meme was hard to resist.

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17 Responses to Kevin Moore On Starbucks “Race Together”

  1. 1
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    I would like to know how, after a variety of smart and powerful people have tried (and failed) to start and finish a national conversation on race, someone at Starbucks decided that the conversation was best reopened between strangers, across a business relationship spanning ~20 seconds. Very, very, odd choice.

    I wonder if it was the same person who thought up the recent McDonalds “do an uncomfortable dance” campaign?

    (If these folks had looked back on it they would have concluded that almost nobody apparently wants to “talk about race,” if what you mean is “attempt to civilly discuss competing opinions and views of incredible importance and weight to both sides, with people who may be your opponents on at least some issues, on subjects where both sides are likely to believe they are right.” White people don’t want to do it; POC don’t want to do it either. That’s why the discussions are almost always limited to voluntary-limited-access settings: they select for people with a particular point of view; people who are unusually willing to hear opposing arguments; or both.)

  2. 2
    Ruchama says:

    someone at Starbucks decided that the conversation was best reopened between strangers, across a business relationship spanning ~20 seconds.

    And, by the nature of the business, among uncaffeinated people. Ever looked at the people on line at a Starbucks at 8:45 in the morning? Those people are not going to be having any kind of conversation beyond “coffee now.”

  3. 3
    Copyleft says:

    Especially when “start a conversation” inevitably means “deliver a lecture.” Only this time they’re forcing employees to do it, instead of just annoying customers with upselling and mandatory phrases. Ironic that any self-described lefties would be OK with this level of corporate behavior-control. Here’s one lefty who’s dead-set against it.

  4. 4
    Ruchama says:

    Ironic that any self-described lefties would be OK with this level of corporate behavior-control. Here’s one lefty who’s dead-set against it.

    What self-described lefties are OK with it? I haven’t seen anyone other than Starbucks corporate saying that this was a good idea.

  5. 5
    Pete Patriot says:

    Whatever Turkey and it’s supporters will say – the Armenian Genocide happened, the Greek Genocide happened, the Assyrian Genocide happened. Islamists are currently trying to commit genocide against the Kurds and Yazidi, yes, including actual slavery. This has happened and is happening and ignoring it is denialism of the worst sort. White doesn’t always mean privileged.

  6. 6
    Ruchama says:

    Have you looked at the #WhiteGenocide hashtag on Twitter? They’re not talking about that stuff at all. They’re talking about how there are too many non-white people in the US and Europe, and so whites will soon be a minority.

  7. 7
    Pete Patriot says:

    I see a lot of jokes on twitter and comments like this:

    The funny thing about #WhiteGenocide is that the only people that have even attempted this throughout history have been other white people.

    I’m actually a little bummed out that #WhiteGenocide isn’t real, because it would be a nice way to wipe out the guys that think it is.

    First they came for the white people, and I did not speak out– because nobody is coming for the white people, you idiots. #WhiteGenocide

    Meanwhile, White Genocide is a real historical persecution, widely denied: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Genocide

    Starbucks have had to pull ad campaigns over their insensitivity to the genocide: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/20/starbucks-offensive-ad-armenia-genocide

    And IS, supported Islamists in Turkey and Saudi Arabia and beyond, are currently conducting the latest in a succession of these genocides: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/world/middleeast/isis-genocide-yazidis-iraq-un-panel.html

    So – whatever tweeters think this is about (and I accept they likely don’t think much) – the ha ha ha genocide, ha ha ha hijab, ha ha ha slavery, isn’t particulary funny when thousands of veil supporting EU and US Islamists are actively using slavery to commit genocide. I don’t believe that fear is unfounded.

  8. 8
    Ruchama says:

    When I looked at Twitter this morning, the first bunch of #WhiteGenocide posts I saw were mocking ones, but once I scrolled back a bit, there were a lot that seemed to be serious, many of which were using the phrase, “Diversity is a code word for White Genocide,” and a bunch talking about how letting non-whites into a white country was destroying white culture and thus it was genocide. Not a single one referencing anything happening outside the US, Canada, and western Europe.

  9. 9
    closetpuritan says:

    Maybe I’m just a weirdo, but I think the phrase “white genocide” implies that the genocide is targeted at whites for being white, rather than being along intra-white ethnic/religious divides.

    I wasn’t very old at the time the Rwanda stuff was happening… Did anyone use the phrase “black genocide” to describe it?

  10. 10
    Pesho says:

    Maybe I’m just a weirdo, but I think the phrase “white genocide” implies that the genocide is targeted at whites for being white, rather than being along intra-white ethnic/religious divides.

    Yeah, it would be much more fitting to use the term for what happened in Zimbabwe, rather than what happened in Armenia, or Bulgaria (similar number of victims, much smaller percentage of the ethnicity). Just because the ones doing the killing had darker skin than the ones killed doesn’t mean much. The irregulars who did a lot of the killing were imported from the Southern regions of the Empire, but the victims were targeted for their religion, not their skin color.

  11. 11
    Charles S says:

    “White Genocide” in the sense that Pete links to is (according to his link) the Armenian term for cultural loss (white = bloodless) of Armenian diaspora members who integrate into the local culture. It is not the Armenian term for the the Armenian genocide.

  12. 12
    Ruchama says:

    [OK, after actually reading the link in question, I realized this joke was tasteless.]

  13. 13
    Tamme says:

    What happened in Zimbabwe wasn’t genocide. People lost their farms because they were rich, not because they were white. The fact that almost all the rich farmers were white speaks for itself. (And I’m not sure that losing your land without compensation counts as ‘genocide’, although I guess it might count under the UN definition).

  14. 14
    Pesho says:

    Oh, I see. But… Why did the rich black farmers not lose their lands? Why did the white hired hands got burned, beaten, killed, raped? Why were whole families massacred without anyone getting punished? What about a stated government policy to get rid of a particular minority?

    The fact that the number of whites went down about 97% may be a clue. The fact that law enforcement stood by as peaceful demonstrators were burned alive maybe a clue. Yeah, when the government makes laws that target people by skin color, and bulldozes houses with people inside in violation of even those same laws, and allows protesters to be burned in front of its highest court, and does not prosecute the offenders, and eventually cleanses its land of the targeted group… It’s not genocide, nor ethnic cleansing unless the targets are lower on the global oppression scale?

    People in power do terrible things to those they blame for their problems. In this world, the people in power are very often white, male and Christian. But anyone who thinks other humans behave differently when given the opportunity is naive, racist, sexist, etc…

    Which is why that I have nothing but disdain for those punching up. Those who are punching have the power, right then and there. If they come near me, chances are, they will not have the local power. They should expect to be punched.

  15. 15
    delurking says:

    Pete: You have a point for the use of the term outside of the USA.

    Within the USA, the term “white genocide,” though, means something else.

    Right down the road from where I live, we have Harrison, Arkansas, what was known until recently as a Sundown town. (And by “recently” I mean less than fifty years ago.) Even now, the entrance to the town posts White Power signs.

    Follow this link for the sorts of signs that are *currently* posted around the town: Harrison, AR.

  16. 16
    RonF says:

    That’s funny!

    The cartoon that is. But what Pesho says is simply true:

    In this world, the people in power are very often white, male and Christian. But anyone who thinks other humans behave differently when given the opportunity is naive, racist, sexist, etc…

  17. 17
    RonF says:

    Oh, dang. In reading through on the links I realize that this “#whitegenocide” is an actual thing. I thought that this was satirical commentary on bogus racism claims, “microaggressions”, etc.