On Saturday, April 22nd at the 2017 SCA Global Coffee Expo in Seattle, a group of seven coffee professionals gathered for a public panel discussion on the topic of “Building Influence and Changing Power Structures.” The panel was led jointly by Michelle Johnson (founder, The Chocolate Barista) and Tracy Ging (co-founder, The Coffeewoman), and includedย Tymika Lawrenceย (Genuine Origin),ย Phyllis Johnsonย (BD Imports),ย Liz S. Deanย (Irving Farm Coffee Roasters),ย Jenn Chenย (Freelance Coffee Marketer), andย Meisterย (Cafe Imports).
Over a thrilling (and far too short) hour and a half of panel discussion and Q&A, the event’s guests and moderators spoke to a packed room. The goal was to “further propel the conversation ofย intersectionalityย within the coffee industry at Expo” across a range of experiences and viewpoints.
There is no more powerful story than the panel itself, so below please find an abridged chronological transcript from the eventโa full recording will be released in the coming weeks via the Coffeewoman Podcast.
The following has been slightly abridged from the live conversation.
Phyllis Johnson:
โBrown and black hands pick beans. White hands trade beans. Questions of intersectionality in coffee are global.”
Liz S. Dean
โMixed race people donโt exist because we have great genesโweโre here just like anyone else, and we occupy a weird space racially in terms of intersectionality.”
Meister:
“When we get on the phone and customers hear my voice, the conversation changes, becauase they realize that Iโm not a man. How do you do business effectively in an environment where you wonder if people treat you differently or talk to you differently if they โknew who you wereโ?”
Jenn Chen:
“I one had someone ask me, โHey do you know this person in China last named Chen?โ”
Tymika Lawrence:
“Iโve had people ask me if I ‘even like coffee’ย in the middle of instructing a lab. Look around this roomโhow many black woman instructors do you see, how many black woman managers? If I didnโt like coffee, do you think I could even be here?
I’ve always had to reference my resume. People ask you to reach into your past and measure what Iโve done, and they donโt even realize it. I have to casually drop my resume into conversations as a way of saying Iโm a qualified coffee professional. Iโve had to qualify myself in every new coffee space always.”
Michelle Johnson:
“I want to talk about biochemistry, coffee science, soil healthโthat shitโs cool! But there are blockades that come up. It’s like I’m the go-to now, and people want to only talk to me about blackness. Iโm at this coffee expo and people only want to talk to me about one thing.”
Tymika Lawrence:
The burden of emotional work is exhausting, but you either do it and be successful or not. I think about what I could get done if people didn’t have to waste the time on that.
Phyllis Johnson:
Could you imagine coming to a table with your largest customer, and instead of being asked about your samples, or about coffee, the question is: “Do you think white people are smarter than black people?โ And then thereโs a pause, and they say, โNo, I really need you to answer that.”
Tymika Lawrence:
I donโt think in general people think about proximity to whiteness, but people of color have to. Itโs ingrained in us.
People of color in coffee have a lot of things in common, and typically itโs proximity to whiteness. Think hard about the people of color you know in coffeeโthey have a college degree, they speak in a way people are comfortable with, and they dress a certain way that is comfortable. I could not be someone like Cardi B and be where I am professionally. Proximity to whiteness is a barrier, and the expectations people have ย for women and people of color come back to this notion of โwhatโs rightโโand itโs proximity to white normativity.
Meister:
Coffee is a global industry and the people of color that we interact with in ways that lift them up or give them empowerment, the people of color this industry treat as rockstarsโtheyโre producers. We take their picture and get excited to meet them, but we donโt treat people of color in cafes with even remotely the same degree of respect or consider that theyโre a worthy candidate. Itโs proximity to white culture and compartmentalization that exalts a person of color in one environment and disrespects them in anotherโthatโs white supremacy, and itโs a foundation of how we do business in this industry.
Phyllis Johnson:
Do you know a coffee professional with lots of friends from Africa, but they canโt name a single African American friend?
Liz S. Dean:
I manage multiple cafe locations as the Director of Retail for Irving Farm, and when I look at customer complaints, the complaints I get the most are against my staff of color and my staff who are gender non-conforming. They canโt place them; ‘They arenโt smiling enough.’ Itโs so unsettling to me and itโs something I think we need to talk about moreโbut Iโm at a loss sometimes for how to talk about it, other than to tell my staff that Iโm there for them and support them and they wonโt get fired for not smiling enough. Compare that to in all the years Iโve been staffing for Irving Farm, I think Iโve received just one complaint about a cis male white staff member.
Tymika Lawrence:
I will never forget, I was in a meeting where a vendor was sending us the wrong information, and costing us money, and I was toldโ’Donโt get emotional.’ Or another time I was asked, ‘Are you angry?’
White men sit in a meeting and raise their voice, but if I raise my voice, who do you think they remember? People have unrealistic expectations of people of color and how they should manage their humanity.ย Weโre talking about centuries of a legacy where people of color are expected to be subservient. And that’s part of the wider history of colonializationโhow coffee got around the world in the first place, and how itโs harvested.
If you have a staff member thatโs a person of color and youโre not thinking actively about how to support them and respect them, you are doing them a disservice, because those biases exist unless you are actively unlearning them. If you donโt respect them, do you think theyโll stay? Thatโs why coffee looks the way it doesโit has to be your burning passion to ignore all that stuff and continue to push forward anyway.
Jenn Chen:
This is my third year of Expo in a booth. One of my clients is Acaia, the scale companyโI handle all of their social media, writing, photography, and product launches. Two years ago we launched the Lunar Scale, and when it launched we had a huge rush to the booth and it sold out in 30 minutesโit was a crowded booth during the entire weekend. And yet I get people ignoring me when Iโm in the booth. Iโm totally capable of explaining all the technicalities and scale research and the manual and dissecting it down for consumers to understandโthis is my jobโbut if you donโt want to hear it from me I canโt do anything for you. There would be groups of men that wanted to learn about the Lunar, but they would wait around to talk to the men in the booth, instead of talking to me.
Michelle Johnson:
People react so strongly to being called out, but don’t take it personally when itโs not about you. Stop making it about you. Stop the defensiveness. Stop asking us to do emotional labor.
Tymika Lawrence:
The people we need to have these conversations with are not used to being criticized. People feel so comfortable giving me unasked-for critiqueโandย no one should be impervious to critique, especially if someone is telling you the way youโre living your life is making it harder to live theirsโbut I have no space for anyoneโs defensiveness. People aren’t used to being critiqued and feeling uncomfortable, and when the shoe is on the other foot the instant reaction is defensiveness.
Itโs fine to be uncomfortable. In fact, there are people around you living uncomfortably because youโre so comfortable.
Meister:
‘You get more flies with honey’โwe hear that all the time. ‘If you didnโt act so mad about itโโฆwell, why are we all so afraid of being uncomfortable with each other? Whatโs the worst thing that could happen? If youโre the kind of person who wants to grow and wants to have engagement, talk to the person about why youโre uncomfortable. Why is it so hard to apologize? Why donโt we just acknowledge that it’s really hard? I think women and people of color acknowledge that all the time.
Liz S. Dean:
Stop asking us to hand out gold stars for people being bare minimum human beings. I feel like when I engage with someone I have to spend the first portion of the conversation patting them on the back. I’m tired of it.
Tymika Lawrence:
This is not about you. Itโs not about anyoneโs feelings. Itโs actually about the fact that these are structural inequalities when youโre trying to be a good white person or a good manโitโs not about you. It’s about world history. Remove yourself from the examination, except for when youโre looking at how you benefit from it. We live in a patriarchal society, and so if youโre a man, and youโre breathing, you benefit. Itโs not about a choiceโitโs about structural inequality.
If you take issue with my tone, and not inequality issues Iโve encountered thousands of times, you are a privileged person. If itโs more important to you that Iโm kind, well, I have to tell youโyou might not like what I said, but we live in a white supremacist patriarchal society, and I donโt like that.
Tracy Ging:
“If youโre white, notice how much space you take up. Notice how much room you yield. If youโre white, sit behind the podium instead of center stage. It does not hurt you or your career or your goals to sit down and shut up every now and then, and yield the space. Just be aware: you can do all the things you want to do without taking up all the space all the time.”
Phyllis Johnson:
Ask questions. And if youโre afraid of asking questions and having open discussions, go home and ask yourselves questions in the mirror. Donโt be afraid to learn someone elseโs history. The pie gets bigger when you embrace diversity and inclusion, and you wonโt suffer a loss. Your life will be empowered.
Get yourself and get your people. Research! Thereโs so much information out there. But I canโt give you historical facts on who I am. No one at this table can do that. Itโs incredibly taxing, more taxing than I can tell youโand I know you worked hard, and your dad worked hard, but hard work has not been the same reward for everyone.
Understand that and educate yourself. We canโt educate you; your ignorance is taxing. We need you to fully engageโto stand flat footed and ready to learn and grow and feel uncomfortable. Thatโs the only way weโre all going to get through this.
Liz S. Dean:
You canโt only care about racism because your friend is black. You canโt only care about transgender issues because your brother is trans. Intersectionality is the whole packageโitโs everything.
Tymika Lawrence:
Whatโs important for me is that everyone examines the way they oppress other people. Because thatโs workโit sounds lovey-dovey, to say you need to love and value everyone the same, but thatโs the truth. And as long as there are hierarchical worths in society that say, ‘youโre worth this if you look this way’ or ‘if youโre beautiful youโre worth this’, we will never be able to be an equal society.
Itโs about work on the individual level to combat anti-womanness, anti-blackness. Everyone has work to do; the difference is the amount. And forย white men, the work you have to do is more important. You exert more power, and you have more work to do. Itโs important, and you need to do that work faster.
Phyllis Johnson:
Iโm glad we can have these conversations now, and you wonโt walk out of the room. I’m glad that weโre in an industry having this conversation.
Michelle Johnson:
Donโt get comfortable with progress. We have a long way to go, but it starts here, in this room. If you have that privilege, use it for good. Weโre tiredโweโre so tired โbut itโs so necessary. I just canโt imagine how much further the industry could go, how much innovation could be happening, if the people like us didnโt have to spend so much time justifying our humanity and resume. We could be much further along, and together we can get there.
Photos by Lanny Huangย for Sprudge Media Network.