10 minutes ago I walked into a neighborhood Starbucks and saw a stack of "Race Together" papers at the bottom of the newspaper stand. Happy to see they were there, I grabbed a few and walked up to the counter. I asked for a young barista I knew who'd expressed an interest in my work.
"He's not here", I was told.
I said, I thought I saw just saw him.
"Well, he's not on the floor yet", the manager said.
"Oh, I wanted to get his opinion on this Race Together campaign" I said, showing the paper.
"We're not talkimg about that. That's over."
"Huh. What?
This just started. You mean you got official word that it's Kaput?"
"Yes", the barista assured me, with no sense of emotion or loss...probably a lot like the reaction you'd get if you asked a North Korean soldier what Kim Jong-un is really like.
Well, so much for Howard Schultz' "Race Together" dialog. It makes Bill Clinton's Dialog on Race look like a marathon. I'll always call it Starbucks Race to Silence.
THIS JUST IN - Reuters reports Schultz says campaign "not over". I guess he thinks his customers are so smart that they'll understand it's still going on even though it only lasted 4 days and Starbucks barista's look at you crazy if you ask about it (just like they did for the 4 days they were supposed to be...er...umm.."dialoging" about it.) Is this Schultz guy a marketing communications genius...or what?
Above is the granddaughter of the very first RMA buyer. She just can't get enough of it.
Above is the granddaughter of the first RMA buyer. She just can't get enough of it!
I'm not surprised at all that they didn't want to be part of it and that they ended it .Rypical if you can't deal with it on your phone or tablet no way are you going to actually communicate. I do think that asking employees to deal with it the way he did was asking a little much . It's hard enough coming to work and dealing with everything concerning work . What he should do is pay his employees to go to classes being taught by people who know what they are doing and so they can learn about race in this country so they will be better equipped to function in society . That way he would achieve what he wants to achieve and his employees could earn extra money and have the hours credited to their health insurance . Win win all the way around
ReplyDeleteTell it Chet!
ReplyDeleteIf he was serious about this, he would have thought it through...before pulling what now seems shallow, pseudo-liberal pr stunt. I think his effort could've lead to something good...if he kept at it amd brought in yours truly to educate both his baristas and his customers in store while sipping lattes.
As I mentioned before, i may still do a RaceMan Talk-in at my neighborood Starbucks just to get the ball rolling.