Howard Schultz doesn’t look like a race pimp. Nevertheless he is undoubtedly a race pimp.
(White) guys like Schultz make great race pimps, as few people suspect them to be what they are.
Where black race pimps like Sharpton and the like are flamboyant in their tactics, Starbucks race pimp CEO Schultz is as smooth as 25-year old Scotch, when he pimps.
How else could you charge $5 for a cup of 20 cent coffee? Try that with oil. Or cigarettes.
Schultz knows how to play the game, that’s for sure.
Maybe Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz is stepping down as CEO of the coffee chain, because he will focus on his more humanitarian pursuit of helping black people. The man transfixes on social issues, particularly those related to black people.
Schultz is credited with transforming the company he joined more than 30 years ago. There is no doubt that Starbucks is a global brand. And more recently Schultz has used black people to help build his brand.
Personally I think they should call Starbucks something more fitting like “Suburbs,” because that’s where they put all the stores. More on this in a bit.
According to NPR,
Schultz will become executive chairman in April to focus on innovation and social impact activities, the Seattle-based chain announced Thursday. Kevin Johnson, who was named president and chief operating officer last year, will be chief executive as of April 3.
Schultz, 63, is credited with turning around Starbucks’ fortunes since returning as its CEO in 2008. He has overseen the expansion of the chain’s food and beverage offerings and the growth of its popular loyalty program and mobile app.
Starbucks has credited the rewards program and app for helping consistently increase sales in the U.S., although growth has slowed more recently and traffic slipped in the latest quarter. Schultz has said such technology adaptions will become increasingly critical for brick-and-mortar retail businesses to thrive as shopping habits change.
If the government looked at Starbucks’ cost versus resale, they would conclude the company runs an extortion racket.
Further, caffeine is addictive, so why not go after Starbucks like the government does cigarettes?
More interesting however is where Starbucks puts its stores.
As Eater.com notes, Starbucks seems to avoid black neighborhoods.
Despite a long-standing association with wealth and gentrification, Starbucks has recently been making efforts to outreach to low-income and minority communities. But the coffee giant has a long road ahead before it can repair its relationship with economic and racial disparity. Even with new plans to bring 15 stores and job training to underrepresented communities, data shows one fact remains: If there’s a Starbucks in the neighborhood, there is more than likely a substantial white population and a median income higher than $50,000.
A token gesture, when you consider Starbucks has 11,563 stores in the United States. That’s 0.1 percent of their stores. Fun math fact: based on demgraphics, if Schultz put stores in black neighborhoods, there would be 1500+ stores in black neighborhood. But Starbucks has a pathetic 11 stores.
Want more tokenism? Look at how Starbucks makes the selection of the stores.
Starbucks announced in July that it was eyeing low-to-medium-income neighborhoods in at least five cities, including two cities — Ferguson, Missouri and Milwaukee — where the police-involved shootings of unarmed black men sparked national outcry. The latter took place in 2014, outside a downtown Milwaukee Starbucks after employees called police on 31-year-old Dontre Hamilton, who was sleeping outside the store.
Starbucks goes to the hotbed of racial issues in order to cover up for its lack of diversity in store selection.
Schultz is a race pimp, and as big a fraud as Sharpton and that pimp ilk. He just doesn’t look like one.
