Coffee Shop Privilege

Due to a complaint to management, my coffee shop isn’t allowed to pay rap music anymore. The barista told me this himself when another patron questioned him for 20 minutes on why the hell he thought folk covers of Outkast was appropriate for a Harlem coffee shop. As a writer by a profession and a coffee snob by pleasure – I spend a lot of time in coffee shops in pursuit of decent caffeination, excellent Wi-Fi and clean bathrooms. I have my favorite places near my office and home – which also feature a wide selection of dry scones and friendly baristas who give me free almond milk and won’t ask me about my weekend.

However, isn’t a surprise that a decent establishment that sells coffee and has seats is the kindling for the colonization of space, time and consumerism that is white privilege.  Whenever an area gets gentrified, community activists are quick to point to the five dollar lattes and handlebar mustaches that java cafes bring. However, understanding what kind of space a coffee shop is inside speaks way more to white privilege and the kind of space all of us think we are entitled to.

Hear this out: your single origin coffee is made in a third-world country as a cash crop that you can only pray was sourced ethically. I am from one of the largest coffee-producing regions in the world, so I understand that amount of money that the industry can bring to a region. But the ethical sourcing is important too. Consumerism has us so excited to source our coffee to one “exotic” region (most people do not know the difference in taste between an Ethiopian coffee or a Brazilian one) that we rarely factor how that coffee is being harvested, who is harvesting it and what they are being paid in order to give us that 10 pm pour-over.

Then comes the rules of space and etiquette that dominate a coffee shop. The privilege that our racialized and gendered bodies take up come out in full force. I have been pushed by a man’s entire dominant hand because he needed to get the last three prong outlet. I have been skipped in line and shouted over. I have seen people hound down baristas and barricade bathrooms and colonize entire benches for no humane reason. (Note from editor Anna: It seems as if people in these spaces simply refuse to say “excuse me.” Imagine being someone female or someone of color (or both like me!) and being rendered invisible.)

This is all to say, we don’t need these things. We don’t need courtesy Wi-Fi or nice bathrooms or fancy latte art. But we prioritize them in ways that couldn’t define “First World Problem” better than a tech-bro turning tomato red at the injustice of not being allotted an outlet while clutching his overpriced cold brew made with beans that a third-world worker harvested in the sun all day for a wage that would be inhumane in America.

I’m not saying to boycott coffee shops, but check your privilege. It’s past racism, but the big-city idea that we are all to be as comfortable and fancy as possible.

My coffee shop can no longer play rap music because a (gentrifier) patron complained that it wasn’t soothing. Now I don’t know if this patron has ever experienced how soothing Run the Jewels could be under the right circumstances, or has listened to Lauryn Hill, Anderson .Paak or The Roots. But you can’t ignore the coded subtle racism that a black, vocal artform like rap wouldn’t be soothing because of the bragicious, “urbane” connotation it has.  Meanwhile, while rap has been banned speciality sourced beans are divided by regions and complete with voyeuristic descriptions (just because a roast is from Africa doesn’t mean it’s strong, just because a roast is from Mexico doesn’t mean it’s “loco”). We consume products in the same way we consume people and the privileges we can take from them.

Look at the way we accept the outrageous demands for accommodation and taking up space. God forbid a coffee shop doesn’t allow laptops on weekends or doesn’t have wifi – the bloodshed is incomparable.

It even goes past racism and speaks to how the modern consumer expects power and choice whenever they go. Especially in larger cities like New York – everyone is the star of their own television show in their minds and the world must bend and break to their whims. The issue of gentrification makes this dangerous, as small-scale microaggressions become a playground for exercising who has privilege and who doesn’t. This same exercise of power happens in workplaces, college classrooms and the chariot to Hell we call the MTA. However, when coffee shops are beacons of gentrification (urban colonization) that hawk wares of global colonization, we see a small scale of the behavior we exhibit when we have a little power over each other. In all – people are disgustingly rude when they get a bit of privilege.

I’m not banning people from boutique coffee shops. Nor am I calling for the white tears that will come from asking white folks to be a little understanding when they gentrify a space. But it’s important to see how microaggressions and colonialism move in the smallest of places. It’s important because we will never understand these things on a large global scale until we see them on a small, local scale. I can’t explain the simple colonialism of black and brown spaces without ignoring how a French coffee shop replaced an old Hispanic restaurant or that a dude in there will tear out my neck with his teeth if I sit in the last seat with an outlet. I can’t explain the demand for privilege and comfort without looking at the local cesspools of it – the privilege of demanding spacious tables to flip laptops on and multiple clean bathrooms and four kinds of oat milk and soothing music and friendly baristas and demanding more and more after – more Wi-Fi and larger cups and longer opening hours and more food options. We are never satisfied. Especially when our consumerism is seasoned with racism and classism.

I save this document on my lunch hour at my coffee shop, listening to the acoustic version of “Golddigger” (who asked for this?). I have to get up and gather my fancy expensive Moleskines and my Ethiopian roast coffee because the guy standing over me will bludgeon me with his Macbook if I don’t give him the window seat with the three-pronged outlet.

Good things & my favorite Black owned coffee shops in NYC:

Take a Break & I’ll Bake Cafe & Creperie (Delicious food and perfect atmosphere for dates)

489 Court St, Brooklyn, NY

Serengeti Teas & Spices (wonderful for buying ethical coffee and tea for home)

22 E 125th Street, New York, NY

Breukelen Coffee House

764 Franklin Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Bushwick Grind (Girl, they are on SEAMLESS with NO DELIVERY MINIMUM)

63 Whipple St, Brooklyn, NY

Sistas’ Place (They stay open late AND have Civil Rights memorabilia on the wall…)

456 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Word Up Cafe

652 Pennsylvania Ave, Brooklyn, NY

About fair trade and coffee:

Buying into Fair Trade: Culture, Morality, and Consumption

Keith R. Brown