Imagine walking into a Starbucks for your morning fix. After waiting in line, you order a café grande. When the barista hands it to you, you notice the words Race Together on the side of the cup. Finally, you have a chance to participate in Starbuck’s “Race Together” campaign, an initiative you heard about through social media. The campaign promotes the idea that we can and we need to talk about race, wherever and whenever possible.
As you pay for your coffee, you open up with one of the questions that you always wanted to ask someone but never could find the courage. “Why are Blacks such good dancers?” You selected this question from a long list of possibilities, including:
Why can’t Whites dance on beat?
How come Asians excel at math?
I heard you can’t trust White people, they will hurt you. Is that true?
Is it true that White women crave oral sex?
Do you know any Blacks who do not like watermelon and fried chicken?
Why are so many Black men in prison?
Why is it that African-Americans are the only ones who get to use the n-word?
Can you imagine a barista trying to explain why Whites cannot dance on beat? Or perhaps, as he or she slowly tries to wake up on an early morning shift, trying to explain why White women crave oral sex, or why they do not? Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks Corp., recently began and then ended this campaign to promote conversations about race. Actually, the cup initiative ended, but Starbucks is still planning to hold forums on this topic, as well as produce special sections in USA Today and publish more stories dealing with racial minorities. Schultz rightly observed that “people are afraid to touch the issue.” He added, “This is not some marketing or PR exercise. This is to do one thing: use our national footprint and scale for good.”
While questions of this nature might seem outlandish and even ridiculous, they are questions that often surface when I do something called the beanbag exercise in my sociology classes at Baltimore City Community College.
We sit in a tight circle. I ask students to share any story or comment that they have heard about members of another racial or ethnic group. Usually, I start the discussion by citing some outlandish comment I heard as a child or teen. Once we flush these stories out into the open, we dissect and analyze them.
This type of exercise promotes openness, honesty, and critical thinking. My students need to be able to trust me and know where I am coming to make this discussion meaningful. Therefore, I schedule the bean bag exercise toward the end of the semester. In a discussion such as this, I constantly rely on my knowledge base, communication skills, years of experience, and understanding of my students and their backgrounds. The focus is not on me, but on them.
Next blog: Part II