I may be joining this discussion a little late but...
I have read and re-read both the original article and the subsequent blog post and comments and I have a few things that I'd like to point out, Ms. Mitchell.
I too can look at the drawing on the Starbuck's board and acknowledge that it has the potential to be offensive to some and not to others. I also recognize that we are far from completely obliterating racism and bigotry in our country. However, despite the claim you make in your article that your purpose is "confronting insensitivity to stop it," there are several times when your own insensitivity is grossly displayed.
First, your quest to identify the artist appears to exclude the possibility that the artist may, in fact, have been an African American. Though you don't say it outright, your scavenger hunt to eradicate this display of insensitivity seems to be founded on the premise that the artist is white. I can only assume that you reached this conclusion because the artwork in question appeared in a Starbucks. What does this say about your own prejudices?
You acknowledge in your article "that public art is interpreted through the cultural lens of the beholder" and never once stop to consider that perhaps your lens might be set to hyper-sensitive.
You again wantonly wield your own insensitivity in your description of "Starbucks' front-line staffers -- who assemble specialty lattes as if they're creating a culinary art form." This statement reveals your prejudice that Starbuck's employees are nothing more than assembly line workers with pretensions. Furthermore, it never enters into your mind that anyone with this type of job could possibly take pride in their work, their product, or their company.
However, these are minor offenses when compared with the way in which you chose to handle this matter from the outset. You don't reveal, until the very end of your article, the identity of the person who gave you the picture in the first place. I can only assume this was to lend to the sense of mystery, the feeling of being on a scavenger hunt. Instead it seems more like a witch-hunt when one realizes that all you really needed to do was ask your source to identify which Starbuck's had the artwork. At that point you could have called or gone into that store alone to speak to the manager about the potential for offense and the necessity of sensitivity. Instead you proceeded to march yourself into every Starbuck's location in the immediate vicinity. I'm not sure what this accomplished aside from increasing your ire over the piece of work, as well as deliberately and erroneously implying to your readers that there was some big mystery to be solved.
You have completely overblown this situation. As a journalist you have a responsibility to carry out your investigations, even those that concern racism and bigotry, with the utmost of integrity. You say in your article that "evidence of our insensitivity to each other's context is inevitable. But we have a choice: We can confront the offense with anger or we can experience these awkward encounters as teachable moments." If your goal truly was to "confront insensitivity to stop it," you failed miserably. You stomped off on a crusade without first doing any of the research that is normally associated with quality journalism and then, despite the fact that the offending artwork had been removed and the manager apologetically explained that no offense had been intended, you still proceeded to write a highly inflammatory article regarding your personal crusade. In sum, you let your indignation and anger cloud your judgment and lost any opportunity for a "teachable moment".
No, your goal was not merely to confront and stop insensitivity. It seems much more likely that your goal was to publicly denounce an entire company and it's workers as insensitive without first stopping to consider your own insensitivity.
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