I fucking love November at one of my favorite places, Starbucks. They get red cups and one of my weaknesses, the Creme Brûlée Latte. It’s like crack. I’ve already had half a dozen and we are barely into November. I have noticed they put the drinks in red cups like every year, but I didn’t pay any more attention until I started seeing posts on how offensive they were.
I saw a headline, then I glanced at the cup in my hand as I sat back with my feet up at Starbucks. So I clicked on the link and read the article on why people are losing their damn minds over plain red cups. I blank stared, confused, and reread it. The one thing running through my head was, ‘Are they fucking kidding me?’
Starbucks does some variation of red cups every year for the holidays. It’s festive. They are celebrating holidays in general. They are not celebrating Christmas specifically. The cups are still red, green, and white! How did the snow flakes and skating snowmen support Christmas more? They didn’t change the cup to blue, or black. They didn’t say a word about boycotting Christmas. Yes, their cup is ‘ombre’ this year, and I can’t even begin to understand how it’s offensive. What I find funny is what these people are missing.
Starbucks is a liberal company. Starbucks is everything the far right hates. I don’t think there are many companies with a better track record of supporting the ‘liberal agenda.’ They don’t allow guns in their stores. They’ve supported equality for many years. The CEO, Howard Schultz told investors at the annual share holders’ meeting to sell his shares of the company if they didn’t support marriage equality. They support fair trade coffee. They audit their coffee producers for social responsibility, to make sure workers are paid a minimum wage and have a zero tolerance policy on workers under the age of fourteen, as well as many other economic and environmental markers. They support protecting the environment. They provide used grounds for gardening, to cut down on waste. (It’s great for composting.) They use 10% recycled paper in their cups and also give a discount if you bring in your own cup. The sleeves are 85% recycled material. They offer health care to all their employees, even part time ones. They support Planned Parenthood. This company is on list after list of complains to black list by the far right.
I find it insane there are people complaining about the color of a cup when the real issues go unnoticed. I’m going to continue to pour my hard earned money into Starbucks with my plain red cup as I write queer romance. I hope you all will too, with a #RedCupSelfie. #SupportTheRed
We’ll call this a make up blog for last week. As I am buried under boxes, and trying to still do NaNo I’ll call it a win.
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