Justice

People Are Giving Starbucks the Same Fake Name to Make a Powerful Point

July 12th 2016

There's a new trend emerging at Starbucks: Customers are giving baristas a fake name, and it has nothing to do with their notorious inability to spell.

People are giving "#BlackLivesMatter" as their name for their Starbucks order. Why? "So the barista has to shout it to a room full of people when they put my order on the bar," said Lex Cross, who appears to have started the trend with a Facebook post that went viral, Mic reported.

Cross' post has more than 46,000 shares and is being hailed as brilliant. It is also inspiring others to follow suit.

This is not the first time race issues have found a home at Starbucks.

Starbucks tried to inspire a discussion about race in 2015 by having its baristas write "Race Together" on cups given to customers. That time, the effort did not go well, and it ended abruptly.

This also isn't the first time someone has used a fake Starbucks name to make a point.

Starbucks replaced its holiday-printed cups in 2015 with plain red ones. Some Christians objected, seeing in the coffee retailer's actions another skirmish in the so-called War on Christmas.

That prompted self-styled evangelist Joshua Feuerstein to use a fake name at Starbucks and post a video on Facebook about it (while arguing that Starbucks hates Jesus): "I went in. I asked for my coffee. They asked for my name. And I told them my name is 'Merry Christmas.' Guess what, Starbucks? I tricked you into putting 'Merry Christmas' on your cup."

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