Joe Berkowitz for Fast Company: “This Is What Happens When You Walk Into Starbucks And Talk To The Barista About Race”. The entertaining article points out some of the ludicrous aspects of Starbucks’ #RaceTogether campaign. I emailed the link to a friend, who prefers to remain anonymous for job reasons, but commented:
“This reminds me of Netflix saying it was going to split the company into two brands and no longer have a single brand aimed at people who wanted to watch movies. I mean… it’s true that I pay separate fees for the DVD’s and the streaming… but two separate brands was just stupid. I mean, one of those ideas that you didn’t test on anyone. #RaceTogether is just such an idea. Massively stupid and damaging to the brand… but probably not forever. It will go away, and then people will forget about it after a few months.”
Basically. To enforce my friend’s point, I had totally forgotten about the Netflix fiasco! Remember how bad the new name was? Qwikster. Bahaha. I love when brands phenomenally mismanage things.
See also: Hamilton Nolan mocking the Starbucks initiative, Khushbu Shah rounding up salient tweets, and Hayley Peterson reviewing the hilarity of a Starbucks exec deleting his Twitter due to #RaceTogether criticism. Bruh. How can you lack self-awareness so profoundly?
Jokes aside, Tressie McMillan Cottom makes the most humane observation:
“It takes a lot of training and a lot of institutional support to teach people things they would rather not hear. I wonder what kind of training and support the hourly wage baristas at Starbucks will get.”