Starbucks' Effort to Talk About Race is Better Than Silence
A dramatic example is offered by the mixed reaction to the two reports that Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department produced about police in Ferguson, Mo.
Conservatives crow about the report that concludes, contrary to earlier accounts by some since-discredited witnesses, white police officer Darren Wilson killed black teen Michael Brown in self-defense, not after Brown raised his hands in surrender.
But supporters of justice for Brown point just as vigorously to the other report, which also has led to a series of resignations in local government. It found years of mistreatment of African-Americans by Ferguson's police, courts and municipal government. All three, the report found, balanced their books by disproportionately squeezing fines, fees and court costs out of the wallets of African-Americans.
Yet some of the loudest voices on both sides of the color line embrace one report and ignore the other. Racial anger, fear, resentments and suspicions are made worse when we pay attention only to those voices or facts that agree with our prejudices.
There's plenty to criticize about Schultz's campaign and the awkward position into which it puts Starbucks' baristas and customers. But slapping down the idea too harshly sends a bad message, too. It says that any effort to improve interracial understanding, no matter how modest, will be harshly rebuked, whether it has merit or not.
We Americans usually have our national conversations about race only after a crisis like Ferguson blows up. Schultz is trying instead to generate a lot of little conversations nationwide. Whether it works or not, it's probably better than silence.
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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.
(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
