Maybe Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz realized that the only thing worse than talking about race before your morning cup of coffee — is talking about race while hopped up on caffeine from your morning coffee. In any case, congrats to Schultz for tacitly dropping his “Race Together” gimmick.
America has a fair ways yet to go on race, but much of that progress can’t come by talking — and certainly not in earnest, worthy tones. It’s about how we act, and just plain are.
It’s about relaxing. Reducing tensions by being less tense.
It says something about how much progress remains to be made that some standard disclaimers still belong here: Virulent, no-holds-barred racism still exists, as do lots of subtler “legacies of racism” that prevent America from being all it could be. And some of it absolutely needs talking about, in the right time and place.
But another necessary step is getting past the weight of race. Race should become something nobody really has to think much about, because it doesn’t much matter.
For now, though, there’s a reason practically the only Americans who can talk about race honestly and effectively are comedians, from Chris Rock to Larry Wilmore. (And, yes, there are reasons why only black comedians get to do it.)
The humor lightens the pain, and makes some kind of larger, unifying, purgative sense out of all the complications and contradictions.
Talking and thinking about race can just be exhausting. That’s why many African-Americans still prefer to live in black-majority neighborhoods: so they can spend part of their day where they don’t have to think about it — which is a heck of a lot easier when you’re not in the minority.
Slavery was a grim reality for centuries; Jim Crow (and other government-enforced injustices up North) for a century after that. The only way to fully heal that ugly history is to keep adding better history on top of it, which most Americans are trying to do.
And part of making that better history is to just go about your day, judging each other (when you even need to judge) “by the content of our characters, and not by the color of our skins.”
Starbucks (and countless other US businesses, large and small) do their part, by being pleasant places to spend a few minutes or hours, with race off the table.
Stick to marketing that, Howard.