STARBUCKS. RACE TOGETHER FORWARD. OR. RACE TOGETHER BACKWARD?

Another admission.

When I posted my initial reaction to Howard Schultz' Starbucks RaceTogether campaign a few days ago, I was more than a little skeptical that it would do anymore for our nation's perennial problem than electing Barack Obama our FBP (First Black President). Ironically, instead of race relations getting better with Barack, judging from the number of AfAms killed casually by cops and vigilantes, they've gotten worse.

(THIS JUST IN - AP reports that an AfAm man's body was just found hanging from a tree in Claiborne County, Mississippi). 

So I'm writing this only to prevent Howard's Race Together initiative from turning into another road to hell, paved with good intentions.

After letting the first word of it...umm...steep...like a Starbucks Earl Gray teabag for a few days...and talking to more than a few Starbucks customers and baristas, I'm going to stifle my cynicism...and, as another fellow Chi-Towner, Jesse Jackson might say, "keep hope alive".

In fact, I'm seriously contemplating starting my own RaceMan Races Ahead Talk-ins at my local Starbucks. I've already said that what seems to be missing from Howard's seemingly well-meaning plans is the little fact  that most of US Americans have been taught to be clueless about the USA's racial past. We've been taught a "drive-by" view of America's RaceStory:

Slavery "oh, that was 150 years ago, get over it", 

Abe Lincoln (he was a saint who loved all blackfolks and freed the slaves. Now get over it")

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement ("He wasn't a real doctor. Didn't  he cheat on his wife. Wasn't  it the Kennedys who loved all  blackfolks and gave them equal rights and affirmative action after Rosa Parks sat down on that bus? Now get over it").

Maybe I exaggerate, but just a little.

The purpose of my talks would be to give those who are sincere about solving our race problem the gut-wrenching facts of the matter. I mean something besides grade school  homilies about George Washimgton chopping down cherry trees or Tom Jefferson actually believing "all men are created equal" when he wrote it with one hand...while holding over 200 men, women and children in chains, with the other.

So whadya think?