“The next time they want to fight hate in their community, they don’t even have to leave their alleged coffee shop. Instead, they just need to find the closest mirror.”
I don’t know if Oakland, California Mayor Libby Schaaf has a favorite local coffee haunt. If not, there’s an Oakland coffee klatch chock-full of kindred spirits eagerly awaiting for Her Honor at Hasta Muerte Coffee (Spanish for “To Death Coffee”—don’t ask me…I’ve no idea). Like the Madame Mayor, the employee-owned business doesn’t feel all that warm and fuzzy about law enforcement—the Oakland Police Department (OPD) in particular.
But where the mayor has been directing her ire at the gringo federales, the coffee shop’s worker-owners (their term), according to their social media posts, direct their hate toward the local constabulary. The oh-so-virtuous coffee shop’s worker-owners appear in danger of shriveling up and slithering to the safety of a dark corner at the mere sight of a uniformed OPD police officer. Still, it seems they also share Mayor Schaaf’s animus toward ICE agents.
KCRA, the Bay Area’s NBC affiliate, is reporting a story about a coffee shop in the Fruitvale District of Oakland, refusing to serve coffee to an OPD sergeant. You’ve all heard about this type of thing happening to cops around the country, but, if you read Hasta Muerte’s social media posts, this employee-owned coffee shop has an official hate policy against cops:
“We have a policy of asking police to leave for the physical and emotional safety of our customers and ourselves.”
(Credit: Facebook/Jodi Morrison)
I wonder if they’ve also requested the OPD put them on a 911 do-not-respond list. When they have trouble, who do they plan to call instead? The ACLU, BLM, or La Raza? They describe their neighborhood as, “an area faced by drug sales and abuse, homelessness, and toxic masculinity…” (“Toxic masculinity”? What normal people talk like this? Oh, answered my own question, didn’t I?) Generously, the shop answered with this posting, “For these reasons and so many more, we need the support of the actual community to keep this place safe, not police.”
Well, let’s see. I’ll concede maybe the “actual community” can handle the drug selling, using, and homelessness. But I seriously doubt, especially with their expressed yearning for “physical & emotional safety,” that they are up to dealing with “toxic masculinity.”
The OPD sergeant, who’d come in for a cup of coffee, ostensibly the purpose for which the business exists, took an unexpected approach after they’d informed him of their policy. The sergeant left, without coffee, but was not at all hateful toward the coffee shop’s worker-owners as they had been to him.
According to NBCbayarea.com, “The sergeant who was turned away said he’s looking forward to talking with the owners to hopefully build a better relationship with them and the rest of the community.” In a letter to the alleged coffee shop, the Oakland Police Officers Association asked the worker-owners to join in a dialogue about their policy of not serving uniformed police officers.
Not sure how the worker-owners will respond to the invitation. But if I had $100, I wouldn’t bet more than two dollars —wait… make that a dollar-fifty— on them reciprocating the sergeant’s and police union’s kind gesture. I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. But I’m probably not wrong.
Considering the coffee shop didn’t respond to media requests to defend its anti-police policy, and that, reportedly, the shop has an Instagram image posted with Spanish writing that reads, “Talk to your neighbors, not the police.” I guess there’s the sergeant’s answer.
Ironically, the customer denied service is also the president of the Latino Police Officers Association of Alameda County. Apparently, because he’s a police officer, he’s not “Latino enough” for the coffee shop worker-owners to overcome his “copness.” (See below)
The shop’s posts betray more of the radical hatred embedded deep within in these people, “The facts are that poc [persons of color], women, and queer police are complicit in upholding the same law and order that routinely criminalizes and terrorizes black and brown and poor folks, especially youth, trans, and houseless folks.” Houseless?
“No Police Men or Women allowed into Hasta Muerte Coffee in Oakland. First they use the name Coffee instead of Cafe, that is just dumb. Second they are not allowing my Police friends or Police family members to go in there. So, I ask my friends; Stay Out Of There! Complain about this restaurant! Besides they only had 2 Stars in Yelp Review. They suck in several different ways.” (Credit/Facebook/Rene Rodriguez)
They go on to whine about police publicizing the staff’s refusal to serve cops. “[C]op supporters are trying to publicly shame us….” Strange that would bother them. You’d think they’d be giddy that cops will know not to contaminate Hasta Muerte with true community service-oriented people. The worker-owners won’t have to worry about, as they put it, suffering “that police presence compromises our feeling of physical & emotional safety.”
And what do they believe is the reason for people who do not agree with their cop-hating ways? “[B]ecause they [police supporters] have a friend or relative who is [sic] a police because they are white or have adopted the privileges whiteness affords because they are home- or business-owning, or whatever the particular case may be.” (No, really… who talks like this?)
Okay, now I’m getting all nostalgic. I miss the days when I was still on the job. At the beginning of each shift, my squad-mates and I would pick a local coffee shop and head down there for a cup. We’d order our Americanos, mochas, and latte’s all the while surreptitiously scanning the place for any minorities.
If there were some, we’d turn up our “whiteness” to eleven—even my black, Hispanic, and Asian colleagues. Then, you know, we’d tear up the place and give those minority coffee-drinkers a proper thrashing while yelling things that hurt their feelings. They were right to fear for their and their customers’ “physical and emotional safety.” It was like we couldn’t help ourselves. Something in our badges, maybe—or in the coffee. Ah, the good ol’ days.
Watch — some on the Left will take this seriously. The Left’s sense of humor has left the building.
After hearing about Hasta Muerte’s cop-hating policy and reading their worker-owners’ comments about law enforcement, generally, they reveal themselves to be no different from all the other boring, radical, leftist malcontents who feel the world revolves around them. What they believe is more important than what you believe. Everyone must live by their rules and comport with their worldview or be castigated as a hateful racist or some other “-ist.”
The next time they want to fight hate in their community, they don’t even have to leave their alleged coffee shop. Instead, they just need to find the closest mirror.
