In March 2015, Starbucks introduced its #RaceTogether campaign to encourage patrons to discuss race and ethnicity in global culture. Public reaction to #RaceTogether was largely critical and resulted in Starbucks’ abandoning the campaign within a year. Through an analysis of 5000 #RaceTogether tweets, this study examines how users engaged the campaign and each other. This study draws three conclusions. First, most #RaceTogether posts featured extremist and racist positions. Second, #RaceTogether posts deflected race conversations and critiqued the organizations role in national racial discourses. Finally, posts in the digital space critiqued Starbucks as a location for inter-racial dialogue because of brand perception. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Introduction

In March 2015, Starbucks introduced its #RaceTogether campaign designed to encourage patrons to openly discuss and debate the contemporary treatment and place of race and ethnicity in global culture. In the aftermath of police violence targeted towards American minorities (and specifically Black Americans), the corporation intended to provide a physical and digital space for customers to reflect on recent events (Hernandez, 2015). While conceivably coming from a good place, the public’s reaction to #RaceTogether was far from favorable and resulted in Starbucks’ abandoning the campaign within a year. Media criticized Starbucks’ efforts and questioned if the campaign produced more tensions between racial groups instead of helping heal national divisions (LaMonica, 2015). Ultimately, Starbucks experienced a crisis just before the 2015 winter holiday season due to digital protests and public backlash (Peterson, 2015b). This study looks at how the public digitally engaged with the #RaceTogether campaign and critiqued its ability to enable discourse on race. While previous research examines the campaign from a critical race perspective, this study uses Twitter data to investigate public response and adoption of the campaign (Logan, 2016). Its findings hold implications for those studying interracial communication, digital public relations campaigns, and new media. An immediate challenge to the #RaceTogether campaign was the public perception of the motivations behind the corporatization of the facilitation of a national dialogue on race.