{"id":25358,"date":"2023-08-28T17:15:34","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T21:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=25358"},"modified":"2023-08-28T21:38:49","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T01:38:49","slug":"qtpoc-and-coffee-a-heady-brew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/28\/qtpoc-and-coffee-a-heady-brew\/","title":{"rendered":"QTPOC and Coffee; A Heady Brew"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a first sample of a post that I find worth posting under my new mandate for relevance.\u00a0 This guy Max Meyer is a midwesterner and there is a local coffee house trying to make a go of it in a small Iowan town<\/a>.\u00a0 He contrasts these sane normal entrepreneurs with the folks in Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco and Portland who see selling coffee as part of a revolutionary struggle in which employees, hopefully people of color and queer folk, confront the customer about white supremacy and the need to uproot and annihilate it.\u00a0 And when this business plan is embraced, self-immolation and hilarity ensue.\u00a0 Here are some highlights:<\/p>\n

“One alleged instance of anti-blackness was that when a group of black teenagers stole the Mina\u2019s World tip jar and customers ran after them to retrieve it, the owners didn\u2019t defend\u2026\u00a0<\/em>the thieves.\u00a0Without a hint of irony, the employees also accused the owners of \u201cwage theft.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The radical accountability process came to an end in June 2022, when Egghart and Parikh agreed to the employee demands, including to turn Mina\u2019s World into a co-operative that the employees would own as reparation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was just one problem: Egghart\u2019s mother, a Korean immigrant and successful accountant, and the owner of the building. She was having none of it and refused to subject herself to the struggle session. She put the building up for sale<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

And this one has so much karma to it:<\/p>\n

“In Portland, Oregon \u2014 at the heart of the indy coffee movement \u2014 Coava Coffee Roasters shut down in May, citing criminal violence against employees.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe team members at this cafe have been on the front line enduring extreme violence and criminal activity on an almost daily basis for the last few years\u2013 crime and violence that is only increasing in frequency and severity,\u201d wrote the owners.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

And of course no discussion of coffee in America can avoid the 800 lb gorilla, Starbucks:<\/p>\n

“But what Starbucks actually did was begin punishing white employees. A white regional manager in New Jersey was ordered by company brass to fire a white district manager who had nothing to do with the arrests \u2014 on false pretenses.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those pretenses: pay discrepancies between white and black employees. The regional manager, Shannon Phillips, knew these charges against the district manager to be false. She cried foul and accused the company of using the white district manager as a scapegoat. A month later, she was fired herself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Phillips sued Starbucks, claiming that she was fired for being white. In June, she won over $25 million in punitive damages against Starbucks. A federal jury in New Jersey agreed with her claim that in response to the 2018 incident, Starbucks began discriminating against white employees to appease angry protesters.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s a beautiful story of getting what you asked for.\u00a0 Inspiring.<\/p>\n

\n

The intersection of Coffee and Mental Illness. This article provides some exhibits of how wokeness fails to flourish when it gets the environment it claimed it wanted. https:\/\/t.co\/R9kOBaFqw1<\/a><\/p>\n

— orionscoldfire (@orionscoldfire) August 28, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n