Tom & Curley: Starbucks idea of serving race with coffee jaw-droppingly pie in the sky

Starting this week, your misspelled name might not be the only message scrawled on your Starbucks cup. Baristas around the country are encouraged to write “Race Together” on cups to spark conversations about race.

KIRO Radio’s Tom & Curley had a fun time imagining just how this exchange might go.

“Imagine we’re going to get drinks,” said host John Curley. “It’s loud. They’re grinding coffee and steaming things. ‘Erynn, Erynn mochochocolota.’ ‘Brendan, do you want that warmed?’ [grrrrrr – sound of beans grinding] ‘What about black lives matter?’ ‘Steve, can you get this guy a muffin?’ ‘What’s happening in Ferguson?’ [sshhhhrrrr – sound of steaming] ‘Could I get some cream in there?'”

The idea to discuss race at the coffee shop was born on a number of forums about race held by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz after the shootings and protests in Ferguson, New York, and around the country.

“We at Starbucks should be willing to talk about these issues in America,” Schultz said. “Not to point fingers or to place blame, and not because we have answers, but because staying silent is not who we are.”

But Tom & Curley can’t get past the fact that this seems like a weird idea.

“Isn’t it bizarre that you’re going to have a conversation about race while standing there waiting in line?” Curley asked.

Curley just doesn’t see how conversations like this in the setting of a coffee shop line will be fruitful.

“The idea of having a conversation about race, religion or something else by sowing seeds onto a parking lot – the corporate world is the parking lot – these seeds of conversations about some important things cast upon the parking lot, they will not find any fertile soil.”

Tom also questioned the amount of racial diversity people are going to find in these conversations.

“In most of the Starbucks I’ve popped into, the population I would say is about 98 percent white. So now you’re going to have a bunch of white people talking about race relations. That sounds like it could just make the condition worse.”

“Race is such a loaded subject. The last thing I can imagine doing is talking to someone you don’t know in a public place about something that’s just so heavy,” Tom said. “It’s just so pie in the sky. It’s jaw dropping.”

According to Curley, the idea “shows you how completely out of touch Howard Schultz is.” He said it also shows how powerful he is, “that no one is willing to go, ‘Hey Howard, I think that is a dumb idea.'”