racism

Good thing you aren't Facebook friends with any black people... oh you are? Well this is awkward.

To encourage discussions about race relations in the United States, Starbucks has asked its baristas to write #RaceTogether on coffee cups and engage in serious conversations with customers.

Turns out that’s the last thing people a bunch of disgruntled people want first thing in the morning while waiting for their first jolt of caffeine.

CEO Howard Schultz describes the initiative as “an opportunity to begin to re-examine how we can create a more empathetic and inclusive society – one conversation at a time.”

He organized an internal meeting back in December in which employees shared stories and discussed all the recent shootings and events which inspired protests and riots from Ferguson to New York.

The company held similar forums around the country over the past few months, and now they’ve decided to extend this initiative out to their customers through the “Race Together” initiative.

Despite all the good intentions behind the campaign, it has turned into somewhat of a joke on Twitter.

After the backlash, Starbucks’ senior vice president of communications, Corey duBrowa, eventually deleted his Twitter account, which is not a good sign.

“I was personally attacked through my Twitter account around midnight last night and the tweets represented a distraction from the respectful conversation we are trying to start around Race Together,” he told Business Insider.

Here are some of the responses on Twitter that Starbucks likely did not see coming:

His middle name is Hussein too...

A London man ended up in big trouble after posting several awful Tweets about Muslims following the Brussels Attacks. His initial Tweet, where he describes "confronting" a Muslim woman was met with an appropriate amount of derision from other users who turned his phrase into a meme. 


via @s8mb, @robmanuel, @Pandamoanimum

He clarified the incident with "The Telegraph" with an alternate version of events:

What everyone’s got wrong about this is I didn’t confront the woman,” he said. “I just said: ‘Excuse me, can I ask what you thought about the incident in Brussels?'”

“She was white, and British, wearing a hijab – and she told me it was nothing to do with her.

“I said ‘thank you for explaining that’ – and her little boy said goodbye to me as we went out separate ways.”

Despite this alternate version of events, his Twitter stream has devolved into alternately spouting hateful things aimed at Muslims and retweeting stories about his "confrontation" Tweet. 


via @MatthewDoyle31

But the story doesn't end there, he was arrested later for his hateful posts. The Telegraph gives details from a police spokesperson on the situation:

"A 46-year-old man was this evening arrested at his home in Croydon on suspicion of inciting racial hatred on social media. He has been taken to a south London police station and enquiries continue."

"Being white is a blessing ..." wait, what?