Student Opinion: An obituary for my Java Chip Frappuccino® order

Courtesy of Hrish Thota

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in celebration and mourning. While some may celebrate the re-opening of the Campus Center Starbucks, I remember the life and mourn the death of my Starbucks order – the Java Chip Frappuccino®. I write on the first anniversary of her official death:October 20, 2024.

I first encountered the Java Chip Frappuccino when I was fifteen. My friend Claire turned sixteen before me, and with her new license and old car, we went on adventures. One day, our adventures took us to Target.

We lived close to the site of the original Target store, whose destruction and rebuilding into a SuperTarget we had mourned five years before. But on this day, we celebrated the massive store for what it hid inside: a Starbucks.

We were new coffee drinkers, consuming our caffeine with loads of sugar and cream. On this momentous day, Claire convinced me to try the Java Chip Frappuccino, and my life changed.

For the next decade, the Java Chip Frappuccino was there for me. Even as my taste buds, sense of culture, and politics matured to enjoy the taste of black coffee and locally owned shops, the Java Chip Frappuccino remained a guilty pleasure. It was there for me on my lowest days when all I needed was a plastic cup full of blended chocolate, coffee, milk, and ice, topped with whipped cream and a chocolate drizzle.

Then, one day, it ended. Without even knowing it, I ordered a tall Java Chip Frappuccino with skim milk and, yes, whipped cream for the last time.

Starbucks owns the Java Chip Frappuccino, and the very name “Frappuccino” is trademarked. Two years ago, Starbucks was everywhere in the news as the workers at a store in Buffalo, NY, voted to form the company’s first workers union, Starbucks Workers United (SWU). Since then, nearly 400 other stores have followed suit, forming unions to demand fair wages, non-discriminatory policies, and affordable healthcare, to name a few.

Starbucks, however, is doing everything it can to fight this, penalizing employees for organizing and even firing some. Though Starbucks denies these violations of worker’s rights, according to Reuters.com, the National Labor Relations Board has brought over 100 complaints against the corporation.

A year ago on Oct. 20, 2023 SWU issued a press release standing with Palestine and endorsing a statement by the Jewish Voice for Peace calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Starbucks Corporation answered by suing the union, claiming the union’s use of its name and logo negatively impacted them. They wrote that they “disagree with the statements and views expressed by the Workers Union and its members.”

That day, Starbucks officially killed my Java Chip Frappuccino order.

Starbucks may not explicitly support the Israeli government in its genocide of Palestinians, but their attack on their unions for supporting a ceasefire implicitly supports the ongoing brutality by the Israeli military.

The company also indirectly supports the Israeli military through its shareholders: former CEO Howard Schultz (who still owns nearly 3% of Starbucks’ total shares) has been a long supporter of the Israeli military, according to Bloomberg.com. Also, more than 15% of Starbucks’ shares are owned by The Vanguard Group and BlackRock Property Management, both vocal and financial supporters of the Israeli military.

While Starbucks is not on the official Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions’ list, people worldwide have been boycotting the brand for over a year, a decisive move that Starbucks admits has hurt its profits.

So, as you may celebrate the ability to pick up your Starbucks from the comfort of your car, I deliver this obituary for my Starbucks order. I join the call for a global boycott of Starbucks and urge you to do the same; I do so as I work with my fellow graduate student workers to form our own union, fighting for our right to collectively bargain for things like living wages, transparent access to healthcare, and a meaningful grievance process.

I remember the support I felt from the Java Chip Frappuccino. I will miss it – the blend, the chocolate chunks sipped through a green straw, the heavy whipped cream. It got me through long nights in college, years of work in a dysfunctional charter high school, and even summers abroad.

A drink, however, is not worth breaking ties of solidarity with other workers and those fighting for a more just world. I can sacrifice my Java Chip Frappuccino. I have other comforts in the world.

I hope this obituary may be the first of many. With a peaceful heart, I lay to rest my Starbucks order. I know her death was not in vain, but part of a series of small, necessary choices along the way to creating a world in which workers have rights and corporations do not get to dictate how their employees respond to genocide.

Rest in peace, my Java Chip Frappuccino order. And may we all be willing to sacrifice at least our small indulgences in the fight for justice.