Montgomery St. and Skyline of Downtown areas of San Francisco, CA. (Photo: Randy Andy/ Shutterstock)
The Greenberg Brief: The Baristas Among Us
Can’t they just make us a good cup of coffee?
By Richie Greenberg, November 2, 2023 2:55 am
Yesterday, a barista on mid-day break walked over to a poster of an Israeli kidnapped child, tore it down, and when caught in the act of ripping the poster off the pole, smugly proclaimed “Free Palestine, F&$k Off”.
Video of the act was posted to Twitter/X and promptly went viral reaching over half-million views and counting, garnering a tidal wave of comments, nearly all condemning the act. The barista works at Sightglass Coffee on Divisadero Street in San Francisco, the fact revealed through having served food items to the person who recorded the video mere moments before. And when the video of the act was shown to the cafe manager, the manager scoffed and refused any further response or action.
NOW: Barista from Sightglass Coffee in San Francisco/Divisadero location, caught tearing down hostage flyers, says Free Palestine, “f*ck off”. pic.twitter.com/W2FOumQ2Vq
— Richie Greenberg (@greenbergnation) October 31, 2023
What exactly about the Israeli hostage posters triggered this Barista and so many others across the nation, to repeat this delusion and incitement to violence phrase and tear down the flier? What triggers the same type of person to rip down campaign posters of political opponents? Or to tear down a statue of historical prominent leaders? Is the goal the erasure of the reminding of an occurrence they simply don’t want to exist further? Cancel culture?
Why are so many baristas radicalized, leftist anarchists?
Let’s suppose this same Sightglass barista had a disdain for Christians: Prayer, conservative family values, responsibility, a perception of white wholesomeness and the “American Dream” trigger this person. Would this disgruntled latte slinger be triggered when walking down the street and saw a Christmas tree display in a shop window? or fliers announcing a community Easter Egg hunt? Perhaps spray-paint over the Sunday schedule for Mass walking by a church?
It’s selective triggering. Or more heinous.
Yesterday, on the same day this barista pulled down and tore up the Israelis kidnapped poster, an 11-year-old boy went missing in the San Francisco Bay area. Police asked for help with locating this individual and news reports broadcasted the child’s description and photo. Imagine both kidnapped/missing posters on the same street pole, side by side. Would it be a stretch to assume this barista would leave the missing 11-year old’s flier in place and pull down the Israeli poster?
Seen in the front widow of that Sightglass location where the barista works, is a printed sign, the mantra which so many social justice cult members bow to and install, designating their claimed safe space- an actual sign most of us have seen at some point over the past few years, proclaiming: “We Welcome All Races & Ethnicities, All religions, All countries of Origin,” etc. Yet it is clear this barista ignores the message, exudes bigotry, intolerance and Antisemitism. In typical fashion when this person was pressed why they felt tearing down the poster was warranted, no credible response was offered beyond the usual F-bomb expletive followed by “that’s all I got to say.” That’s the radical, ideologues default response: profanity with a dash of smugness and a smile.
A few weeks ago, shortly after the Hamas attack on Israelis near the Gaza border October 7th, 2023, the Starbucks Baristas Union put out a controversial statement backing the Hamas/Palestinian side in the war. Legal mudslinging ensued between the national Starbucks corporate offices and the employees’ Barista Union. It’s bizarre to think an army of baristas across the nation adopts leftist, radical ideology. And antisemitism. But it’s a phenomenon we need to pay attention to seriously.
In the last few years, numerous jobs have updated their employee training and HR policy guides to require Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plans, together with “Implicit Bias” training. The purpose is to instill acceptance, respect, understanding and tolerance. Many job positions mandate this training. Did this Sightglass barista follow the principles of Implicit Bias training? Does San Francisco’s Sightglass company require this training at all? Antisemitism has become so rampant that Jews across America are now understandably feeling unsafe. Is the barista sending a message, that Jewish customers and others supportive of Israel are unwelcome?
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Hate to break it to you, Richie, but Jews are part of the problem.
At least that’s what the DEI industry thinks…
All Jews are so powerful, so privileged, so rich they epitomize and exacerbate everything that is wrong with the culture today.
I wonder where we heard that before…
Your framing of sympathy for Palenstine as “backing the Hamas/Palestinian side in the war” speaks volumes of your total ignorance of this actual issue. There are very few of these young barista types who “back Hamas.” Most simply understand the historical precedent for these attacks, are not surprised such violence has broken out, and see it as once another moment for unilateral statements of anticolonialism to be reaffirmed. We are sick of the framing deliberately being made to put advantage over the holders of a literal internment camp that has openly acknowledged their interest in wiping out the population therein. How childishly inane do you have to be to not see this? It is willful ignorance at best. “Would it be a stretch to assume this barista would leave the missing 11-year old’s flier in place and pull down the Israeli poster?” Yes, it is a stretch. Just like everything else in this article. I am continually blown away by writers such as yourself who put pen to paper for articles like this without addressing a minute of the most fundamental historical context.
You’re just mad because the average barista does more good for the world that’s you’ll ever do. Learn to make your own damn coffee, nobody needs your single espresso’s worth of business.
Ummmm, you are not doing chemical engineering for the cure for cancer, barista-boi. Now shut up and get my latte foam correct this time then you can go back to your dissertation of early 7th century furry poetry.
Rich, good for you to put pen to paper and point out the hypocrisy.
I like the reference to the sign in the window “We Welcome All Races & Ethnicities, All religions, All countries of Origin”.
Jews part of the problem?
Hmmm, more patents, medicines, literature, music, etc have been brought to this world by this small group of rich and privileged people. That must be why they are the problem with culture today.
Ernst Boris Chain, noble prize winner, saved more allied soldiers with synthesizing Penicillin, a win for microbiology and the world.
Internment camp, well,…. Israel is certainly not going to let people who celebrate in the streets with sweets, the killing of Jews.
How ’bout’ muslin brothers Egypt in the south? They could open the gates to the ‘interment camp’, then it would not be an ‘internment camp any more.
Historical context, …history is messy, but I’ll go with a people who create positive things like aspirin, polio vaccine’s, Albert Einstein, Levi Strauss, Bob Dylan, Itzhak Perlman, Kirk Douglas, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Steven Spielberg etc.
I doubt that barista will contribute anything positive.
So given the neighborhood and the type of cafe it is (totally smug and very unfriendly unless you look like just like one of them) its 100% guaranteed that idiot just arrived in the City recently, grew up in a very well to do, very white suburb, and is a profoundly low information ultra conformist who is probably doing the minimum number of credits at SF State to keep the money from the parents flowing. A walking cliché in that part of the City.
Divis/Mid Haight was an in between place for decades. Not enough public housing like Lower Haight, Western Addition to make it outright dangerous but just enough to make it a real nowhere place with some very sketch blocks. But as the “moved straight from the suburbs wanna-be’s” were priced out of the Upper Haight they migrated down the hill over the last two decades. So now like all the other “progressive” parts of SF its by far the whitest least diverse part of the City.
Its very easy to find all the “progressive” neighborhoods in SF. That’s were all the overwhelming white out of towners live. They also make the worst neighbors. So the lower the support for “progressives” in a SF neighborhood the nicer the neighborhood is to live in.