After just one week, Starbucks employees will stop writing “Race Together” on your coffee cups.
CEO Howard Schultz ended the effort Sunday, after days of pushback against the company’s initiative to start a conversation about race within its more than 20,000 stores. Other parts of the year-long Race Together #RaceTogether program will continue, including forum discussions and special sections in USA Today. But the scribbling of a somewhat-ambiguous message on lattes has been quickly phased out.
“While there has been criticism of the initiative — and I know this hasn’t been easy for any of you — let me assure you that we didn’t expect universal praise,” Schultz said in a memo.
The message was meant to be “just the catalyst” for a broad conversation about race, after a year in which the topic has figured prominently in news headlines and dinner-table conversations across America.
Starbucks ended their #RaceTogether campaign. I was looking forward to these conversations tho. https://t.co/5qGybZKGvi
— Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo) March 23, 2015