Facebook Publication Date: 9/13/2022 0:09

At first glance, this video is not going to seem to be about race, but I want you to bear with me.

This is both a follow-up to this weekend’s post about the passing of Queen Elizabeth, but also an easy pivot to race.

This is a talk given by James Hoffmann, a renowned coffee expert who hails from England.

This is important.

This lecture, given four years ago by now in Colombia, was at a conference of mostly coffee roasters, of which James is one, but also held a smattering of coffee producers.

I am going to rerun this video in November, when we talk about conscious consumerism.

Here though, I want you to concentrate on what he’s saying about colonialism and power dynamic.

I want you to think about what he says about risk and reward, and even though he only mentions it in passing, the talk is infused about the enduring effects of colonialism in the global south, in this case particularly coffee, but it is generalizable to all natural resources that have been extracted for the aggrandizement of Europe and the rest of what is called the West.

I think that it is important that it is a European man speaking to this; by no means was he the only person speaking at this conference, in fact, come November, I am going to share this and refer to James again, particularly the places where I disagree with him, or the places where there’s no room to disagree because he never mentions some issues that I feel are crucial, and I also am going to point you to the first and second parts of this video, where a Black woman from the United States and a Costa Rican man address both the marketing efforts, and a focus on the end user in the case of the woman, and also who benefits most from the coffee business from the perspective of the Costa Rican gentleman.

But today, I want you to focus on James. His presentation starts at about the 32nd minute mark, and it goes from there.

Here is what I find most interesting in what James presents.

First of all, he talks about changing the conversation and changing the power dynamic as a coffee importer and roaster.

He acknowledges, forcefully, that where he is in the supply chain carries the most reward and the absolute least risk.

And, incredibly, from the position he holds as on top of the food chain, supply chain speaking, he insists upon a new paradigm.

He does not feel that he should be in this advantageous position; he does not feel that any importer should be.

He does not feel that he should hold all the cards in what he pays producers or what he charges to cafes and the general public.

And: he argues that this one-sided conversation, and the business relationships he forges that are completely to his advantage need to be dismantled.

*This is stunning.*

It almost never happens.

Let’s hold the particular focus on coffee in one hand, while also pivoting to race.

Most of the time, when people find themselves in advantageous positions, they *may* feel some level of guilt about The Way Things Are, but they rarely consider the historical forces that make things the way they are, and also almost never talk about ceding some of that power.

James’ locating of himself as a reluctant colonialist, but a colonialist nonetheless; his acknowledgment of his being a reluctant oppressor, but an oppressor nonetheless, and using the resources he has amassed from that advantageous position to challenge and confront the very system that benefits him makes him best case.

Leveling the playing field. Turning the pyramid on its head and making the playing field flatter and rounder

He talks about some things that could happen that would make flat and round more possible, such as longer-term contracts, such as importers not dictating prices to growers or retailers.

He talks about being more collaborative in setting the standards of what good coffee means.

There’s more to it, and like I said not everything he says I agree with. We’ll get to those points of contention in November, I promise.

But what I like so much about this is that James gets granular, he acknowledges his position and his power, and and in so doing, he names the elephant– and, implicitly, indicts the system that he works under.

I began following James Hoffmann fairly recently, because he is a complete coffee geek. He actually won the world Barista Championship more than once and has since become a very respected expert in the field of coffee. But, and his new book bears this out, you cannot become an expert on coffee without becoming an expert on colonialism.

Which brings us back full circle to the enduring Legacy of colonialism and oppression that the Crown participated in–and still does. As has been noted by many others, there is not a single Jewel that the royal family owns that was not pillaged.

And, as we’re going to talk about in November, while he talks about sharing power with *growers*, one place of contention that I am going to talk about is the fact that that’s where he stops. Growers are not workers. Growers own the fields and own the product, but they are not the one with a basket on their back picking coffee berries.

He does talk about, and I do agree, that the entire supply chain needs to be rethought.

I don’t want to give up too much of what I’m going to talk about in November, but what I will say here is that while I think that James goes farther than most any other person in a power position when it comes to Commerce, if he is not going to talk about the African or the South American or the Caribbean worker in the fields, his convictions, while honorable, are incomplete and insufficient.

The fact is, as we look at maps from the last few days that detail the breath and depth of the British Empire and the years that various countries gained independence, the unspoken but undeniable truth is is that independence without economic control of the land, *and most of these countries are still under European economic control* is, while laudable and necessary, again, incomplete and insufficient.

I know that during this conference that workers in the fields were spoken of, and I think that that’s important. But I also know that when we talk about remaking systems, confronting institutions, both implicit and explicit, both overt and covert, the focus always has to be on the most vulnerable person in the room, or, more accurately, who is not in the room.

All of this discussion is an easy pivot to race.

If necessary, I’ll provide queries, but I would like to know your impressions before I inject my own perspective, at least before I inject more of the perspective already given you.

It is important that we consider the weight and the import of James beginning this conversation, incomplete as it is.

And it is important that he is an Englishman.

And it is also important to confront and be convicted as to how one can leverage, flex, and pivot regardless of where you are.

James is in a very niche business. Specialty coffee takes up less than 3% of all coffees and even if every single specialty roaster decided that they were going to be 100% ethical, that still leaves 97% of the coffee Market.

But 3% is not nothing.

Pivoting back to race, a lot of people talk about how little they can do, that their efforts to change systems and institutions will be but drops in the bucket.

I think this is a perfect case study of how it can be different.

If James, from his very particular perch, can exercise his capacity, volition, and agency to tell the truth about a system in which he is embedded, so can you.

So can I.

So can we.

So could have the Crown.

(Again James’ lecture comes at around minute 32, but the entire video is well worth watching.)

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