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On Coffee And Slavery

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  • On Coffee And Slavery

    Are we ignorant of history?

    --------------

    What does one of the latest statements on slavery have to tell us about our knowledge of history? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

    Those who know me know I can’t stand coffee. I am a tea guy. I remain loyal to my beverage of choice. However, that doesn’t mean that anything said against coffee is right automatically. Consider this, one example of how ridiculous our culture is getting thinking they are making a powerful point by resisting something.



    So let’s consider a few points here.

    First off, let’s be clear that slavery is wrong. I can’t believe I have to say this, but unfortunately, I do. If I don’t say it, someone is going to think that I am defending slavery. They’re going to think that anyway, but I fully agree with the wrongness of slavery.

    However, that being said, it’s time to list other facts.

    For one, if we were to eliminate anything that has anything to do with slavery at any point in time, we will have to likely eliminate nearly everything that there is. (Which could include those tennis shoes you’re wearing.) Pyramids of Egypt? Gone. Great Wall of China? Gone. How many other great monuments from history would vanish?

    Second, slavery has happened with every race out there practically and every race has enslaved every race and every race has even enslaved their own race. The word slave itself comes from the Slavs. Who were they? White Europeans. Who were white Europeans and others buying slaves from in Africa? Other Africans.

    Third, the only slavery most people know of today is the slavery in antebellum America. Outside of that, no clue. It’s ignored that it was the West that ultimately did so much to end slavery.

    Fourth, many people today who are against slavery, and rightly so, could likely not give a good defense of why they are. If you went back to the Roman Empire and asked anyone if slavery was wrong, even the slaves themselves, they would likely look at you stunned as if society could be any other way. Today, it’s the exact opposite.

    Fifth, no matter what we do today, we can never erase history. Not buying coffee today will not change that slavery took place. There is no need to punish the industry today for something that happened before anyone in the industry today was even born. We are living with a fool’s errand if we think we can redeem ourselves this way.

    Sixth, we can be redeemed, but only by Jesus. Our nation can make things right best by turning to the God who bought all of humanity for a price in the person of His Son. We will not do it by any other action.

    Finally, today, we need to learn history again. So many people think they’re being activists by not buying coffee or something like this. Want to do something about slavery? It still exists in some parts of the world. Go there and do something about slavery in those parts of the world. Our ignorance of history leads to repeating it. Learn instead from slavery that we do have scars in our past, but the good news is we have changed the way we used to do things and become a beacon of freedom for the world.

    Real change will take more than this. Avoiding anything that has anything to do with slavery, even antebellum slavery in America, will not do anything. It will only hurt people today who had nothing to do with what happened and are just trying to provide for themselves and their families.

    As a tea lover, there are plenty of good reasons for not buying coffee. This is not one of them.

    In Christ,
    Nick Peters
    (And I affirm the virgin birth)
    What does one of the latest statements on slavery have to tell us about our knowledge of history? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out. Those who know me know I can’t stand coffee. I am a tea guy. I remain loyal to my beverage of choice. However, that doesn’t mean that anything … Continue reading On Coffee and Slavery

  • #2
    Actually now they say that the pyramids were built with paid labor not slaves.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
      Actually now they say that the pyramids were built with paid labor not slaves.
      Yup, even evidence that various crews competed against one another.

      I'm always still in trouble again

      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
        Yup, even evidence that various crews competed against one another.
        And I bet you had 10 guys standing around supervising one poor guy moving rocks. Durn government jobs!

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Sparko View Post

          And I bet you had 10 guys standing around supervising one poor guy moving rocks. Durn government jobs!
          Not according to the propaganda pix

          image_1894e-Djehutihotep-painting.jpg

          I'm always still in trouble again

          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
            Not according to the propaganda pix

            image_1894e-Djehutihotep-painting.jpg
            You would think they would have invented wheels or something, eh?

            Comment


            • #7
              Went looking for the story because things in the o/p aren't adding up, found this at a link that should have been the story itself ...
              .
              Fast Company's content management system was breached Tuesday evening. As a result, two obscene and racist push notifications were sent to our followers in Apple News about a minute apart. The messages are vile and are not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company. Tuesday's breach follows an apparently related event that occurred Sunday afternoon on FastCompany.com, when an unknown actor (or actors) posted similar language on the site's home page and other pages. Fast Company regrets that such abhorrent language appeared on our platforms and in Apple News, and we apologize to anyone who saw it before it was taken down. We immediately retained a leading global incident response and cybersecurity firm and together are investigating the situation. We have shut down FastCompany.com until the situation is resolved.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                Went looking for the story because things in the o/p aren't adding up, found this at a link that should have been the story itself ...
                .
                Fast Company's content management system was breached Tuesday evening. As a result, two obscene and racist push notifications were sent to our followers in Apple News about a minute apart. The messages are vile and are not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company. Tuesday's breach follows an apparently related event that occurred Sunday afternoon on FastCompany.com, when an unknown actor (or actors) posted similar language on the site's home page and other pages. Fast Company regrets that such abhorrent language appeared on our platforms and in Apple News, and we apologize to anyone who saw it before it was taken down. We immediately retained a leading global incident response and cybersecurity firm and together are investigating the situation. We have shut down FastCompany.com until the situation is resolved.
                Hope you're staying safe right now.
                "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                  Went looking for the story because things in the o/p aren't adding up, found this at a link that should have been the story itself ...
                  .
                  Fast Company's content management system was breached Tuesday evening. As a result, two obscene and racist push notifications were sent to our followers in Apple News about a minute apart. The messages are vile and are not in line with the content and ethos of Fast Company. Tuesday's breach follows an apparently related event that occurred Sunday afternoon on FastCompany.com, when an unknown actor (or actors) posted similar language on the site's home page and other pages. Fast Company regrets that such abhorrent language appeared on our platforms and in Apple News, and we apologize to anyone who saw it before it was taken down. We immediately retained a leading global incident response and cybersecurity firm and together are investigating the situation. We have shut down FastCompany.com until the situation is resolved.
                  Um the post in the OP shows an article from fast company from MARCH of this year, not a few days ago.

                  A quick search on Google shows a result from March 30 also and a link to the article (which since they have their whole site down right now doesn't work)

                  coffee.jpg
                  They also have a link to the article on their twitter page: https://twitter.com/FastCompany/stat...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

                  So whatever caused them to take down their WHOLE site this week has nothing to do with the article in the OP. That was real.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Sparko View Post

                    Um the post in the OP shows an article from fast company from MARCH of this year, not a few days ago.
                    Which I was looking to read, but can't because the site was hacked on Tuesday by racists.

                    So whatever caused them to take down their WHOLE site this week has nothing to do with the article in the OP. That was real.
                    Racists hacking their site is the "whatever" that caused them to take down their page.

                    Unless you're suggesting Nick had this article on the hook since March, it's a sure bet it was promoted this week to right-fringe racist whack jobs who responded by hacking the site and sending racists messages to their mailing list. The fact he's using an image of a tweet that brings slavery into the picture rather than the actual article, or even the actual tweet, also argues he's getting this from a right-fringe feed.

                    I'm near certain you're misreading the title of the article, which is a riff off the 1988 film, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," using the sociological term Whiteness — relating to White-centrism — in this case as it applies to coffee culture. Think Starbucks. The subtitle suggests the article is promoting black-owned coffee shops that also promote black culture.

                    But that's just what I'm reading out of the subtitle. I'd have a better idea what it was about if I could read the article, but I can't, because they were hacked by racists.

                    I've got plenty of other criticisms of the o/p, starting with the gob-smacking idea that slaves didn't have a problem with slavery. But who knows, maybe the remainder of the article I can't read would make that a minor criticism.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      So here's the actual tweet, posted 9/24.

                      Avoid the rest of her feed, because she really is exactly the ignorant piece of work that she appears to be in the o/p image. Thankfully the thread schooled her on this much:
                      .
                      Actually "coffee" is named after a place called "Keffa" in Ethiopia, from Africa. as the pic is shown that how we do our coffee in Ethiopia, its' birth place.

                      Yes, coffee has since been adopted around the world. Different cultures have put their widely differing marks on it.

                      I sometimes kid (not actually kidding) that I'll never stop visiting Miami because I'm addicted to cafe colada, the Cuban way to drink it. The Turks have a version I call mud because of the grounds left in the bottom of the cup. Awesome only so long as you sip it as intended.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        The article in question not including the instagram images which you can see for yourselves by clicking the hyperlink at the bottom:

                        Source: The unbearable whiteness of coffee


                        A slew of Black-owned coffee companies are reclaiming American coffee culture using design and branding that tells a rich story of Black history.

                        For too long, much of Black history has been kept out of textbooks. Perhaps that’s why Black business owners are thinking out of the box to tell important, little-known stories—infusing history into the packaging, branding, and design of their products.

                        The coffee industry is a prime example. Black history and coffee history are deeply intertwined: Coffee was stolen from African plantations by Europeans in the 1600s, incorporated into the transatlantic slave trade in the 1700s, and today is a $100 billion industry run mostly by white executives. Whitewashed coffee shops opening in Black neighborhoods are often an early sign of impending gentrification.

                        But a wave of Black-owned brands are working to reclaim the Black birthright of coffee. Memphis-based Cxffeeblack put this story smack in the middle of its coffee bags. Text on the back explains how the coffee plant was stolen from Africa by two Dutch spies shortly before the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. “We are finding our liberation as a people, and now we are liberating our birthright,” the bags read.

                        Cxffeeblack is a fast-growing brand run by husband-and-wife team Bartholomew Jones and Renata Henderson. Launched in early 2020, Cxffeeblack harnesses the power of hip-hop and social media savvy to “make coffee Black again.”

                        Besides unpacking the racist history of coffee on its packaging, merchandise is a major part of how Cxffeeblack sends its message—and that message is far more profound than what appears on typical corporate merch. “When George Floyd was murdered, we came up with the ‘Love Black people like you love Black coffee’ tagline,” Henderson says. “We made a few shirts, with a goal to sell 25 in a week. By the end of that week, we sold 200.” They’ve now sold nearly 2,000.

                        Cxffeeblack deliberately uses design to connect its products to Black culture. Henderson, who also does graphic design for the brand, pointed to Guji Mane, Cxffeeblack’s signature roast. The use of bubble letters is intentional, she explains—bubble lettering is credited to graffiti artist Phase 2, who popularized the art form in the early days of hip-hop in the 1970s. “There’s a reason there’s a drip in the lettering. Drip represents this swagger—it has street appeal,” Henderson says. “When you say someone has drip, it means they’re dressed really well. ‘Signature drip’ says we like to do it with a different type of swag.”

                        At its brick-and-mortar shop in Memphis (appropriately named the Anti-Gentrification Coffee Club), Cxffeeblack invites visitors to sip a fresh pour-over while enjoying a cypher (a freestyle hip-hop session) by local artists. As musicians and artists, Jones and Henderson are focused on building a community through their business.

                        “Black women are the original baristas on this planet,” Henderson says. “But when I walk into most coffee shops, people look at me as if I’m an outsider. I want Black people to come into my shop and feel dignified.”

                        Dope Coffee, based in Decatur, Georgia, also infuses its brand with Black hip-hop and history. The shop’s mugs feature illustrations of Black women in history who broke barriers, like Harriet Tubman and astronaut Mae C. Jemison.

                        According to Kim Crowder, a business consultant who specializes in diversity, equity, and marketing, Black-owned businesses often use design to tell Black stories in addition to selling their products. “They’re using communal language to connect to their culture,” Crowder says.

                        Support for Black-owned businesses surged after the murder of George Floyd—but Crowder says Black-owned companies have always used narrative elements in their branding. “Storytelling is a big part of Black brands. Black culture is built around community, food, and Sunday dinners. A lot of our history was never recorded in the way that white culture has been, so a lot of our culture is based on oral storytelling.”

                        While storytelling is a common part of marketing in 2022, Crowder says this looks slightly different for Black-owned coffee companies. “We’ve seen Whole Foods talk about the origins of coffee,” she says. “But these brands are reclaiming these stories from a Black perspective that is less rooted in a large conglomerate. Businesses like Cxffeeblack take the history back to our communities.”

                        Washington-based Boon Boona Coffee is a Black-owned shop that’s introducing the East African coffee ceremony to American audiences. It’s a traditional approach that involves pan-roasting raw beans, then brewing those beans in a clay pot known as a jebena. In 2019, visitors to the café participated in the ceremony every Saturday (a practice the company plans to revive when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted).

                        Founder Efrem Fesaha says the brand’s logo is an intentional connection to African history. It references painted cherubs on its ceiling of the 17th-century Debre Birhan Selassie church in Ethiopia. Fesaha says it’s also an homage to the Queen of Sheba.

                        “So often, only negative things are attributed to the people and continent of Africa,” says Fesaha, whose family is from Eritrea. “Putting a positive light on the history of Africa is so important—not only for authenticity but also to recognize our role in something that the whole world consumes.”

                        In Atlanta, Black Girl Black Coffee, which launched in 2020, sells coffee produced, exported, imported, and sourced by Black women. Its muse is Rose Nicaud, a formerly enslaved woman who became the first known coffee vendor in New Orleans in the early 1800s, selling coffee to passersby until she earned enough money to buy her own freedom.

                        “When I was writing my dissertation, I came across the story of Rose Nicaud,” says founder Neichelle Guidry. “In such a dehumanizing time, coffee was a vehicle for her freedom. After she became free, she taught other enslaved women how to utilize their skills to earn money and eventually freedom.”

                        Guidry is using design to honor Nicaud’s legacy on social media and through her product. “Our logo is two roses, in honor of Rose Nicaud. It helps me focus on how the work I do will contribute to the liberation of my community,” she says. “Coffee is a vehicle—it’s not the end-all-be-all. The point is telling the story.”

                        Crowder says Black Girl Black Coffee is a prime example of Black-owned businesses using design to serve their community, first and foremost. “When Black people think about business, we think: How does this honor the community I love most?

                        To Crowder, these coffee brands are using more than design and history to sell products. She says she’s reminded of how jazz influenced the creation of the Black Panther Party. “Art moves forward the conversation, whether it’s book covers, photographs, or paintings. Branding is an extension of how we’ve incorporated art into social justice, into the conversation about moving our people forward. We call it branding for products, but it’s really art.”



                        Source

                        © Copyright Original Source






                        I'm always still in trouble again

                        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                          So here's the actual tweet, posted 9/24.

                          Avoid the rest of her feed, because she really is exactly the ignorant piece of work that she appears to be in the o/p image. Thankfully the thread schooled her on this much:
                          .
                          Actually "coffee" is named after a place called "Keffa" in Ethiopia, from Africa. as the pic is shown that how we do our coffee in Ethiopia, its' birth place.


                          Yes, coffee has since been adopted around the world. Different cultures have put their widely differing marks on it.

                          I sometimes kid (not actually kidding) that I'll never stop visiting Miami because I'm addicted to cafe colada, the Cuban way to drink it. The Turks have a version I call mud because of the grounds left in the bottom of the cup. Awesome only so long as you sip it as intended.
                          FWIU, it became popular in the U.S. after the Boston Tea Party.

                          And, never forget, Sultan Murad IV was absolutely right.

                          I'm always still in trouble again

                          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                            And, never forget, Sultan Murad IV was absolutely right.
                            I assume you mean in ordering the execution of his mentally disabled brother, but I'm not sure what that has to do with coffee.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                              The article in question not including the instagram images which you can see for yourselves by clicking the hyperlink at the bottom:
                              Thanks for that. Seems anodyne to me. Niche markets raise an eyebrow with me. Unless there's some way to charge premium rates, giving up on a larger market puts a real stress on revenue. But as above, that's not actually necessary. I like to tell my kids that everyone is a mix of something, and I'm a mix of English and English. But I still love me some cuban coffee.

                              Because it's just better.

                              I never got around to visiting east Africa. Maybe their coffee is better, too.

                              Comment

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