“…so at least they’re trained, but most of us don’t really care what they have to say.” – Instapundit
You know, Laura Ingraham (conservative talk show host and pundit) wrote a book a while ago called “Shut up and Sing” whose message was “I have given you money to entertain me – not lecture me about your liberal politics. Stop the latter and just do the former”. And now Starbucks has decided that schlepping out overpriced and over-pretentious coffee-in-a-cup isn’t enough – it agrees with AG Eric Holder that Americans are too cowardly to talk about race so CEO Howard Schultz has ordered his baristas to “engage”:
This week Starbucks patrons in line for coffee may find themselves waiting for an impromptu discussion on race relations to take place between barista and fellow patrons as part of the new “Race Together” social awareness campaign initiated by CEO Howard Schultz.
The idea is for a barista to write “Race Together” on a customer’s cup and then engage that customer in a dialogue about race relations in America.
“When did you first become aware of your race?” is one question a barista might ask a patron who is interested in starting one of these free-range “organic dialogues,” according to Starbucks’ spokesperson Linda Mills, in a phone interview.
Yup, The Stupid is strong in that place. Now, I have no dog in this fight as I don’t drink coffee (it tastes like chocolate gone bad) so the only times I’ve hit a Starbucks was in airports and I had a jones for a coffee roll or some such. But in reading these blurbs about this rather hubris type invasion that a cup of coffee maker clerk is going to school anyone in any kind of literate way in the 2 minutes to order and get that cuppa joe is just about nil. And especially if the baristas is, as Glen Reynold snarkily holds, I’d have to listen to some nitwit gender studies graduate whose only ability in the commercial world is “want cream or soy with that”. Just shut up, make the coffee with only a bit of light banter, and let me go ’cause I gotta work. And so do all the folks behind me.
#StopTheHectoring
Speaking of a hashtag, here were a couple of the better tweets:
https://twitter.com/timothypmurphy/status/577826374204928001
https://twitter.com/SpiritEquality/status/577845170743345152
How does @Starbucks even decide whom to ask about #RaceTogether? Are you engaging in racial profiling to talk about ending racial profiling?
— Christine Pelosi (@sfpelosi) March 17, 2015
https://twitter.com/Will_Antonin/status/577840146604797952
But the best one, IMHO, was this one:
https://twitter.com/Matthops82/status/577827297132089345
in My answer to that question would be “About the same time I realized how stupid you are in asking me that question – and everyone ahead and behind me”. Actually, Moe Lane at RedState has a great line that I bet 98% of those poor Starbucks employees would have no rejoinder at all:
“Gee, Senator Moynihan pretty much called it when he said that breaking up the nuclear family unit was going to blight African-Americans for generations, huh?”
And that really would just get that “deer in headlight” look, wouldn’t it?
(H/T: Daily News, Christian Science Monitor, The Blaze, RedState,)
