Today in coffee related news…
Race Together was the name of Starbucks genius 2015 campaign to address race relations in America. Basically, the CEO had the idea that if their Barista’s write “Race Together” on their customer’s coffee cups that they would then sufficiently be able to solve America’s race problems through their cups and love. It was a nice idea. Well intended but not thought out very well. So imagine my surprise when one of my favorite actresses, Thandie Newton (Beloved, Crash, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Slap) had to take to Twitter to smack the hands of the coffee giant about an offensive statue that she saw in one of the Starbucks locations. Let me clarify that this location is not in the United States. The statue was of a little Black child, barely dressed (loin cloth) wearing a safari hat and carrying a tray of coffee beans.
Seriously Starbucks?
I’ll let you be the judge of whether its offensive or not, here is her tweet.
Seriously @Starbucks? At the counter – Loin cloth and Safari hat on a black child. Happy New Year circa 19th century pic.twitter.com/kD3qgKmti1
— Thandie Newton (@thandienewton) January 4, 2016
Here are my thoughts: It’s 2016 why are people still not even considering race when they do things? For those of you who may be confused about how we feel about this let me make it clear, IT IS NOT OK FOR YOU TO DISPLAY STATUES THAT DEPICT BLACK PEOPLE IN SUBSERVIENT ROLES. ok? Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way. Listen folks it;s offensive to me and to Thandie. She had every right to call out a company who claims to give a crap about race relations. It doesn’t matter if they are offending here or abroad the affects are the same after all racism is NOT just an American thing. I think the company needs to have a serious look within their own house before they try and repair what’s going on in the country. Especially, when what they are doing is part of the problem.
Starbucks did give a response
@thandienewton we are very concerned to learn of this incident & we can’t apologise enough. We have removed the figure & are investigating.
— Starbucks Help (@starbuckshelp) January 5, 2016
Hey Starbucks, do me a favor. Stick to making my coffee Black. Stay out of race relations and unless you going to start putting your stores in Black neighborhoods, you need to stop putting statues of Black kids in your stores. Period.
::sips coffee::
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