Sometimes getting people to shout out your cause to the masses requires nothing more than a cup of coffee.
Facebook user Lex Cross came up with a creative idea to compel Starbucks baristas into declaring, “Black lives matter.” His simple but brilliant idea was to merely write in his name as #BlackLivesMatter on his coffee cup.
“So the barista has to shout it to a room full of people when they put my order on the bar,” Cross wrote on his Facebook page.
ATTN points out that Starbucks has had a complicated recent history when it comes to issues of race. Last year, the company publicly encouraged its baristas to initiate conversations about race with employees – a well-intentioned move that went over like a lead balloon. Other people have also previously used the customer name gimmick in an attept to start conversations, most notably over the Starbucks decision to change its holiday themed coffee cups. But the #BlackLivesMatter meme seems to be forging a unique path of its own that is only growing in visibility over the last several days.
After sharing an image of his cup to his account, the idea has really taken off with more than 47,000 people sharing his post and countless others replicating the practice at Starbucks locations across the country. As Mic reports, a barista at just one local Chicago Starbucks locations said she counted no less than 43 customers ina single day who used the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag as their name. “I immediately started counting during my shift once the third person did it,” she told Mic.
Cross shared a video on Tuesday of a barista calling out the name that is both inspiring and pretty cute. After all, the barista declares: “Black Lives Matter … chocolate smoothie.” Smooth indeed.
