Over the past couple weeks, much of the mainstream media and bloggersphere had been abuzz with frenzied commentary to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s efforts to encourage baristas to discuss the issue of race with customers. Reaction ranged from sympathetic, mildly supportive to cynical to outright critical. I applaud Schultz for taking the initiative to confront an issue (no matter how awkwardly) that has been a perennial problem in our nation since its inception.
Starbucks abruptly ended the campaign earlier this week.
For many people, race is, indeed, often the 800-pound rambunctious elephant in the room. It is permeating our current state of affairs. The supposedly post racial society we supposedly entered several years ago. For the record, I (and probably many other people of color) never believed such a fallacy. There is no person who is attuned to the climate of the current environment who can convincingly argue otherwise and Schultz is to be commended for attempting to tackle this thorny issue.
That being said, the fact is that for far too often any effort to address the issue of race in America has been a largely packaged affair; ceremonial, co-opted and controlled by well meaning yet often alarmingly out of touch legislators and celebrities. To put it bluntly, far too many efforts to address the issue of racism in our contemporary culture is often misguided, distressingly adrift, naive and tone deaf to the concerns and harsh realities that many people who suffer its (racism) pernicious effects have to deal with on a daily basis.
Politicians of all races, entertainers and the occasional athlete or public intellectual locking arms and singing freedom songs from the civil rights movement more than half a century ago does little if anything to confront the searing issues that are plaguing many communities of color in the 21st century.
· Unarmed Black men (and some women) being routinely shot by police officers.
· Students of color and non-White faculty and administrators, college students and faculty routinely enduring relentless forms of micro aggressions from fellow students and colleagues on their campuses.
