--- title: What Starbucks Can Learn About Race Relations From Chipotle description: Starbucks’ troubled #RaceTogether plan needs to borrow Chipotle’s recipe for food-for-thought: honest storytelling, right on cups and bags canonical: https://time.com/3749374/starbucks-race-together-chipotle/ author: Jack Linshi article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-21T14:54:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2024-01-24T14:38:25.000Z article:section: Ideas og:title: What Starbucks' Race Relations Stunt Can Learn From a Chipotle Burrito og:description: Starbucks needs Chipotle's food-for-thought recipe: honest storytelling on cups and bags — and nothing more og:url: https://time.com/3749374/starbucks-race-together-chipotle/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9cedcc400186f27a/69878441428a9e80becc7b40/starbucks-race-together-chipotle-author.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4467 og:image:height: 2513 og:image:alt: Starbucks Race Together Chipotle Author Series og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Starbucks' Race Relations Stunt Can Learn From a Chipotle Burrito twitter:description: Starbucks needs Chipotle's food-for-thought recipe: honest storytelling on cups and bags — and nothing more twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9cedcc400186f27a/69878441428a9e80becc7b40/starbucks-race-together-chipotle-author.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Starbucks Can Learn About Race From Chipotle > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar On Racism [Watch (HLS stream): Kareem Abdul-Jabbar On Racism](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QPdUnHb2.m3u8) (2:21)  _Published 2014-05-05. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: How To Tell If You're a Racist Like Donald Sterling_  by [Jack Linshi](https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi Updated: Jan 24, 2024 2:38 PM UTCPublished: Mar 21, 2015 2:54 PM UTC  Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz addresses the "Race Together Program" during the Starbucks annual shareholders meeting on March 18, 2015 in Seattle, Wash. Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz addresses the "Race Together Program" during the Starbucks annual shareholders meeting on March 18, 2015 in Seattle, Wash. Stephen Brashear—Getty Images  by [Jack Linshi](https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi Updated: Jan 24, 2024 2:38 PM UTCPublished: Mar 21, 2015 2:54 PM UTC “Must a cup, or bag, suffer an existence that is limited to just one humble purpose, defined merely by its simple function?” an obscure philosopher by the name of Chipotle Mexican Grill posted [online](http://cultivatingthought.com/) last May. The answer to that question, according to the burrito chain, is no. And to prove it, Chipotle decided to bestow its cups and bags with original literary nuggets penned by some of the nation’s most venerated and popular writers. [A blockbuster screenwriter](http://cultivatingthought.com/author/judd-apatow/), [a Nobel laureate](http://cultivatingthought.com/author/toni-morrison/), [a revered M.D.-Ph.D. journalist](http://cultivatingthought.com/author/sheri-fink/), among others, were offered the rare chance to publish on Chipotle’s wrinkly, recycled papers, destined for garbage cans nationwide, but not before passing through millions of hands. This way, the company’s food and drink holders could manage, if only for a moment, to hold the elusive attention of its customers. And apparently, the project is a hit: the project, called the [‘Cultivating Thought’](http://cultivatingthought.com/) series, kicked off its second edition in January. ### Go Inside Starbucks' Wild New 'Willy Wonka Factory of Coffee'  On Dec. 5, founder Howard Schultz debuted part of his new strategy for Starbucks: his first flagship “Roastery,” a 15,000 square foot space that is both a coffee roasting facility, and a consumer retail outlet. The place is to coffee what FAO Schwartz is to toys or Dover Street Market is to fashion—retail theatre. Ian Allen for TIME  Ian Allen for TIME  Ian Allen for TIME  Ian Allen for TIME  Ian Allen for TIME  Ian Allen for TIME  Ian Allen for TIME  Ian Allen for TIME On Wednesday, along came another cultural change campaign from another, but even more ubiquitous chain: Starbucks. The initiative started with a curious new slogan on its coffee cups: #RaceTogether. It was a well-intentioned aimed at inspiring customers to talk about race at the cash register, but the early reviews were grim: it was dubbed a “[brew-tally dumb](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/18/starbucks-ceo-s-race-idea-is-brew-tally-dumb.html)” plan by critics who also called out the CEO’s “[chutzpah](http://time.com/3749633/kareem-abdul-jabbar-starbucks-racetogether/).” After all, how dare a coffee shop attempt to defuse the nation’s most incendiary issue with coffee cups. As the[_Atlantic Monthly_](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/overcaffeinated-attacks-on-the-starbucks-race-together-campaign/388072/)aptly put it, the implosion of #RaceTogether is evidence of another societal truth: “no effort to grapple with race in America will go unpunished.” (Starbucks said it would [stop](http://time.com/3753493/starbucks-race-together-barista/) writing “Race Together” on coffee cups on Sunday, though it said it had always intended to phase out that feature and that it’s only part of the broader campaign.) But the good news for Starbucks is the solution is clear: Don’t _grapple_ with race, or any other divisive issue by running into it bluntly—instead draw from literature to crack the issues open. In other words, take a cup from Chipotle. With #RaceTogether, Starbucks made a responsibility, an argument, out of the idea of race, and in the process they alienated the two groups of people most capable of tapping into Race Together: Activists fighting racial bias think it’s trivial and ineffective, and their opponents, already sick of the discussion of race, certainly won’t put up with this P.C. invasion of their coffee houses. But as the writers who’ve been published on Chipotle’s cups have shown us, using literature to tackle the hardest topics–death, love, high school popularity, even race–has always been the best way to engage hearts and minds. With art, it’s possible to probe racial issues, even with explicit racial cues, without setting off a firestorm—so long as it’s not overbearing. For example, while Race Together often relies on sentimental or melodramatic statements ([“It began with one voice”](http://news.starbucks.com/news/what-race-together-means-for-starbucks-partners-and-customers)), Dominican-American author [Julia Alvarez’s Chipotle quote](http://cultivatingthought.com/author/julia-alvarez/) graces a sensitive cultural divide with distance and brevity: --- > “” --- In other words, it _is_ possible for any of us, even a coffee store, to raise issues relating to non-white characters—just don’t allow their most important qualities to be non-whiteness. That’s exactly what a handful of writers have expressed repeatedly, and achieved very masterfully. Some of the authors who appear on Chipotle’s cups have long been great examples of this. [Amy Tan](http://cultivatingthought.com/author/amy-tan/), whose _Joy Luck Club_ (1989) mediates more on mother-daughter relationships than their being Chinese-American; and [Toni Morrison](http://cultivatingthought.com/author/toni-morrison/), whose Nobel-winning works prioritizes black Americans to re-imagine her characters as “raceless,” even during peak eras of racism. While there are more to these stories than race, race is also pervasive, driving history, dialogue, thoughts, actions. It’s this simple, balanced awareness of race that is missing in Race Together, and its failed efforts, often subtle, to understand racial equality and racial awareness—writing [“one race: human”](https://twitter.com/coreydu/status/577447660589752321) here and [“races”](http://news.starbucks.com/news/what-race-together-means-for-starbucks-partners-and-customers) there—have rendered the initiative opaque and embarrassing. So Starbucks, instead of simplistic, corporate-sounding slogans like Race Together, why not go right to the heart of the issue with an excerpted passage from Morrison’s most well-known novel, _Beloved_ (1987). Those are words that would invite Starbucks’ customers to ponder, if not discuss where race may be of significance, if at all. --- > “” --- Of course, at some point, racial biases or stereotypes—not simply cues—demand to be addressed explicitly. Burrito wrappers and coffee cups may not be enough to tackle the raging online debates that flare up when we hear white Ferguson cop Darren Wilson’s racially-charged [descriptions](http://time.com/3605346/darren-wilson-michael-brown-demon/) of being afraid of black teen Mike Brown. Or when we digest the furious reaction to Fashion Police’s [Giuliana Rancic’s remarks about Zendaya’s dreadlocks, even after she apologized for trading in such odious cultural stereotypes.](http://time.com/3721516/giuliana-rancic-zendaya-hair/) Neither Chipotle nor Starbucks have waded into specific racial incidents like those, and perhaps that’s good, but either company could host lighter-hearted, thought-provoking moments pulled from literature. Take, for example, Amy Chua’s controversial parenting memoir, _B_ _attle Hymn of the Tiger Mother_ (2011). While a viral _WSJ_ article prior to its publication titled (without Chua’s knowledge) [“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754) turned her book into a national racial debate, _Tiger Mother_ in fact tells the exact opposite story. Chua unravels that very cultural stereotype, in both poignant and funny ways: --- > “” --- There’s one last very important lesson from Chipotle’s cups—if you’re going to talk about race, push the conversation forward. Whereas Starbucks’ Race Together repeats platitudes about the nation’s enduring racial divides, a piece published by _New Yorker_ writer [Malcolm Gladwell’s on Chipotle’s site](http://cultivatingthought.com/author/malcolm-gladwell/), questions more broadly what really counts as social acceptance, and what that’s truly worth. Race becomes just one part of the human experience: --- > “” --- This more relaxed interpretation of race—not about its groups, but how we approach it—could revive Race Together. Like Chipotle’s desire to give its cups and bags a new function, and like Starbucks’ wish to turn its sales registers into ideas exchanges is worth pursuing. Race Together can gain a broader purpose as a vehicle for thinking about people in general. And that requires looking for more carefully crafted ideas than a hashtag. And those ideas can be found even beyond literature relating to America: take Katherine Boo’s non-fiction work _Behind the Beautiful Forevers_ (2012), for example, which explores a Mumbai under city to investigate social mobility and justice. These are the kinds of ideas that Race Together needs. And what better way to serve them than on cups to-go? --- > “” --- _Read next:_ [_Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Starbucks’ Flawed But Wonderful Plan To Tackle Race_](http://time.com/3749633/kareem-abdul-jabbar-starbucks-racetogether/?iid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript From what I can tell, more whites in America believe in ghosts than believe in racism, and that's why we have shows like Ghost busters and not racist busters. [ LAUGH ] As a general rule things don't end well if the sentence starts let me tell you something I know about the Negro. People see the fact that a black American could get elected President, they see that as the end of racism. That's absolutely not the case. [ NOISE ] It's a milestone in a marathon. Just a tip for you. [ LAUGH ] Don't start your sentence that way. I think it's pretty created a false sense of achievement that we've done everything that we need to do, and that we can just slump back into being complacent. Racism, unfortunately, rears it's head in places that you would never expect at, at times that you would never expect. I think the President is in a tough position because as a Black American, if he's. Too proactive or too enthusiastic, about dealing with racism. People think he has agenda. White Americans are not a group that is targeted, so it's a surprise to many White Americans that discrimination and bias can affect people's life. They, they think it's a thing of the past. We have shows like John Stewart and Stephen Colbert they're like colonoscopies into America's bowels. You know, they're looking for the polyps of intolerance. There is no racism in America. There's more Cholera in America than there is -. Than there is racism. [ SOUND ]. More Cholera! Yes. Racism has gone the way of [ NOISE ] where you drink. [ LAUGH ] And I think that by pointing those things out and ridiculing them we get a chance to identify issues and and deal with them in a meaningful way. You know there's only one lead story today and that is the racist comments of LA Clippers owner and Darth Vader with his helmet off, Donald Sterling. [ LAUGH ]. Racism has obviously been a hot topic with regard to sports. And, and Mr. Sterling's problems, but racism as it relates to society at large is something that we don't talk about enough. And inclusion should be the keynote of, of American life. We have people from all over the world that come here, and they can become American Citizens and have a, have a wonderful life here. 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