Episode 35: Coffee, Community and Justice: A Conversation with Keba Konte of Red Bay Coffee

On today’s episode, I speak with Keba Konte, founder of Red Bay Coffee in Oakland CA. On a mission to diversify the look and feel of the specialty coffee business in America, Konte’s business model for Red Bay considers issues of equity and fairness at all points along the supply chain: from where the coffee is grown and how much growers are paid, to how much his own baristas and other employees receive in pay and profit sharing, so they can continue to afford to live in rapidly gentrifying communities like the Bay Area. Blending commerce and conscience — and demonstrating a successful model rooted in fairness, equity, and community — makes Red Bay Coffee a model for not only the coffee industry but for companies in general. And at a time when companies like Starbucks are training their white employees on matters of implicit racial bias, companies like Red Bay are demonstrating that people of color ownership and connection to communities of color might well be an even deeper and more meaningful institutional challenge to racism. This episode also contains Tim’s commentary on the recent spate of white folks calling police on people of color in a number of high profile incidents, and what these suggest about white privilege, white fragility and the current political and cultural moment.