Tag Archives: nancy

Starbucks Wants to Talk Race With Its Customers. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Mother Jones

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Judging from its reception on social media yesterday, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s just-announced kumbaya pipe dream is destined for eternal ridicule. The company hopes to address racism by slapping the words “Race Together” on coffee cups and forcing its baristas to coax customers into unsolicited discussions about race relations.

To get a preview of what’s coming, check out this conversation between CBS’s Nancy Giles and DJ Jay Smooth during an appearance on last night’s All In with Chris Hayes.

Giles: “I can’t not tease Jay about the kinda, like, brotha way he was trying to talk. Like, ‘Hey,’ with the rap music in the background, and like down with the people.”

Smooth: “I’m a rap guy!”

Giles: “Yeah, I know, but it’s another interesting funny thing about race. There would be some people that would feel that you co-opted something like that, and other people might feel like, ‘That’s his background, and that’s really cool too.’…These are conversations, you know, ‘Yo, like ya know, yeah, if somebody takes my wallet,’ I mean, it’s really interesting.”

Smooth: “It’s also interesting, because I’m actually black, but you assumed otherwise. And this is the sort of awkwardness we can look forward to at Starbucks across America.”

Giles notes early on that the campaign’s purpose seems noble and that conversations about race should be encouraged. But as the conversation reveals, Starbucks’ bold venture into race relations reeks of clumsy naiveté. Let’s save our baristas the trouble.

(h/t Salon)

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Starbucks Wants to Talk Race With Its Customers. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

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Dozens of Staffers Just Walked Out of Congress. This Powerful Picture Shows Why.

Mother Jones

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On Thursday afternoon, dozens of congressional staffers walked out in protest of the recent grand jury decisions failing to indict the two officers who killed Eric Garner and Michael Brown. The result was an incredible display of solidarity, with staffers raising their hands in the air to invoke Brown’s “hands up, don’t shoot” image. See the photos below:

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Dozens of Staffers Just Walked Out of Congress. This Powerful Picture Shows Why.

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Nancy Sutley plans her White House exit

Nancy Sutley plans her White House exit

Sam Beebe

Another member of Obama’s environmental team is headed for the door. The administrator of the EPA and the secretaries of energy and interior departed soon after the president’s second term began, and White House climate adviser Heather Zichal left last month.

Now Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, plans to step down in February.

From National Journal:

Sutley, appointed at the outset of Obama’s presidency, has kept a lower political profile than some other top officials. But she played a crucial role in several major administration policies, the White House said. …

Obama, in a statement, thanked Sutley for her five years with the White House, calling her a vital part of such policies as the second-term climate agenda he rolled out in June.

“As one of my top advisers, Nancy has played a central role in overseeing many of our biggest environmental accomplishments, including establishing historic new fuel-economy standards that will save consumers money, new national monuments that permanently protect sites unique to our country’s rich history and natural heritage, our first comprehensive National Ocean Policy, and our Climate Action Plan that will help leave our children a safer, healthier planet,” he said.

If she did all that, how come so many people have never heard of her? Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar explains: “Nancy’s personality is that she is a workhorse, not a show horse, and she labored in the detail of things to get things done,” he said. “When historians look back at her time at CEQ, they will be able to say she was very effective in informing and advancing the president’s conservation agenda.”

Sutley’s departure means the White House is not just losing talent, but diversity. Her exit “end[s] the tenure of one the longest-serving openly LGBT members of the Obama administration,” the Washington Blade reports.

When Grist interviewed Sutley in 2009, she admitted that she wasn’t a big fan of Washington, D.C.: “the weather really stinks, so sometimes I get up in the morning and I think, why did I leave California?” No surprise, then, that she plans to head back to Los Angeles.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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Nancy Sutley plans her White House exit

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