Starbucks: Not in Line with My Core Values

There are now 284 Starbucks stores in Seoul, more than in New York, Shanghai, London or any other city you care to name. I recall once standing at a big intersection and seeing a Starbucks at three of the four corners—how’s that for saturation?

I have been in a lot of these coffee shops, especially in my home district of Gangnam. The product is always of high quality, and the atmosphere is comfortable. No wonder so many college students go into a Starbucks and camp there for hours at a time. Starbucks is, for good reason, a nice place to visit. It commands substantial brand loyalty. But I am starting to rethink my fondness for this Seattle-based corporation which generated $26.51 billion in revenue in 2019.

Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker started the business on a shoestring in 1971. Whether they envisioned Starbucks as something more than a coffee shop, I do not know. But under Howard Schultz and his successors Kevin Johnson (CEO) and Myron E. Ullman (chairman), it has gone whole-hog on the politically correct front.

In 2015, the company launched its Race Together initiative, the ostensible purpose of which was to have a national dialogue about race relations. Starbucks baristas were urged—neigh, directed—to write the phrase on disposable cups and talk to customers about this delicate topic. A series of “conversation starters” were provided. Think about it: You enter a store, order a double nonfat one-pump-mocha Venti and a creamed cheese bagel, and the barista casually asks what percentage of your Facebook friends are of a different race, or how integrated your apartment building is, or whether you agree that black people are treated less fairly than White people in the American criminal justice system.

This was a gross overstepping of boundaries. The attempts at dialogue were awkward and futile, not to mention condescending. Surely the baristas did not speak to black and White customers in the same way—did they? I can only assume it was about gas-lighting and guilt-tripping the latter, as the former are regarded as noble and perpetual victims. The Starbucks customers behind you had to wait patiently while you and the barista chatted about reconciliation and how to forge post-racial harmony. Evidently, the baristas were not too busy making coffee and actually doing their jobs, and thus had plenty of time to navigate these tricky waters. Once you completed your order, the process began again with the next customer.

Too bad I was not living in the USA in 2015 and one of them tried it with me, a White person. I might have started a conversation of my own: Why do black males between the ages of 13 and 40 commit a staggering 57% of violent crime? Are you familiar with Tessa Majors (a White college student robbed and murdered by three black teenagers in New York on December 11, 2019)? Haven’t we had “affirmative action” since 1963? Doesn’t the media bend over backward to praise and coddle blacks while deprecating Whites? And what about the fact that 1.25 million Europeans were kidnapped and enslaved by Africans in the 16th and 17th centuries? I would have asked my barista, regardless of whether he or she was black or White, about the justice of that.

Race Together, which began with a full-page ad in the New York Times, was a huge failure as customers complained and comedians had a field day. One Starbucks executive, Corey duBrowa, deleted his Twitter account because he felt “overwhelmed by the volume and tenor of the discussion.” Although well- intended, it had been wildly impractical. Schultz deserved the criticism and mockery that rained down on his company. He canceled it but affirmed that they would go ahead with other so-called progressive efforts.

And so they did. Starbucks is well known for pushing the BGTLQ agenda. Lots of stores in the United States and Europe have the rainbow displayed everywhere. Banners, T-shirts and cups make clear that Starbucks is gay-friendly. (To be perfectly clear, I am not gay-unfriendly. I do not have a phobia about this issue and refuse to be so labeled. But as a dyed-in-the-wool heterosexual, I will always have difficulty understanding how two people of the same gender can be attracted to each other.) “Pride in every cup,” goes the slogan.

Until recently, Betsey Fresse was one of Starbucks’ more than 200,000 employees (40% of them non-White). This White woman from New Jersey took her Christian faith seriously and thus preferred not to wear a Pride T-shirt. Fresse was diplomatic in stating her acceptance of people who enjoy alternative lifestyles, but she would not accede to the company’s crude social and political injunction. The Starbucks ethics and compliance representative insisted. Fresse stood her ground and was fired, leading her to file suit on the basis of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The case is still being adjudicated.

I support Fresse who, if she were black, would not have been treated so shabbily. I hope she prevails and Starbucks is forced to write her a settlement check with a lot of zeros. More important, however, is for Starbucks, which loudly proclaims its “core values” of inclusion, diversity and equity, to live up to them. Be fair to everybody, including Christians, heterosexuals and Whites. Schultz has retired, but it’s time for Johnson, Ullman and whoever else is calling the shots these days to abjure the smug, self-righteous attitude that suffuses their company.

Seattle, you may know, has been the site of some of the most violent and long-running protests and riots—oops, not supposed to call them “riots”!—since the Only Black Lives Matter movement began in late May. Among the hundreds of businesses vandalized has been the Starbucks at 12th and Columbia Streets. The shop’s windows were broken, merchandise was stolen, and profanity was spray-painted on the walls, inside and out. Despite its relentless PC pandering, little goodwill exists for Starbucks in “the community.”