I start my day with Chock Full O’Nuts coffee. Be careful what you say next, because getting teased for my coffee of choice is one of my favorite opportunities to be smug and self-righteous.
First things first: I really do love Chock Full O’Nuts coffee, so it’s not as though I have elected hardship in order to make a philosophical point. I would if I had to, but it is genuinely excellent coffee despite it’s being inexpensive. Secondly, there’s a very particular reason that the smell and taste of Chock Full O’Nuts is what my olfactory memory lands on for what coffee should smell and taste like. When I was a little kid and my family would make the long trek down-state to visit my grandparents in New York City, I often would sneak out with either my grandmother or my grandfather to go to the coffee shop for a slice of cake or a sandwich. At that time in New York, the coffee shop was invariably one of the Chock Full O’Nuts “coffee counters” that were ubiquitous in Manhattan at that time. They were less numerous than Starbucks is today (what isn’t?!), but those coffee counters were a part of New York’s DNA and New Yorkers’ everyday lives. So, for me, this is how coffee is supposed to taste, and the fragrance of it from across my kitchen in the morning makes me happy.
To be clear, my point here is not merely that I’m nostalgic for a time long ago when my grandparents were larger than life characters in the big city. My choice of coffee runs deeper than that.
When I’m in smug coffee mode, after attempting to generate a picture in the mind of my detractors of wee-little-me sitting on a stool at the counter next to my grandfather like some Lower East Side version of a Norman Rockwell painting, I dig in further. I pull out the third-rail of childhood in New York, someone that I believed then and believe now is simply beyond criticism, reproach, or even question. Yes, I bring up Jackie Robinson. No, I’m not kidding.
Years after breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers, years after showing all of America and the world what sort of character it took to bear that burden, to bear the vitriol and viciousness of entrenched American racism alongside the hopes and dreams of so many yearning for their slice of the American Dream with equal aplomb and grace, Jackie Robinson retired from baseball and worked as an executive for … wait for it … Chock Full O’Nuts Coffee. He was the company’s Vice President and Director of Personnel. “Do you still want to make fun of my coffee?!”, I say with glee. Don’t go there. Just don’t go there. We’re talking about Jackie Robinson here.
Here’s the point: In my family, Jackie Robinson represented America the way we hoped it would be; the way we wanted it to be. Graduate from college; serve your country as an Army officer; fight injustice while proving your exceptional worth every day through hard work and tenacity; and raise a family and settle into a well-deserved career for a beloved American company while still being a strong advocate for social justice and with those two not being in conflict. I grew up really believing that this was the way it was all going to work in America – isn’t that why Jackie Robinson fought so hard? So we wouldn’t have to? There can be zero question that Number 42 played an essential role in moving our nation forward. Still, like all of my heroes, the point is not that Robinson did the work so we didn’t have to. The point is that he established a standard and shoved our society in the right direction in order that we all would pick up the banner of social justice, pick it up right where he left off, and do the same for the next generation of our fellow citizens.
Yesterday, the teams competing in the National Basketball Association playoffs determined that not playing their games was a vital way to draw attention to the numerous, horrific recent incidents and the long history that make clear that the struggle for social justice in America is not yet done. I am immensely proud of them, and of the National Basketball Players Association, the team owners, and NBA executives who stood by them. If I could, I would serve them all a cup of my favorite coffee so that they would know, metaphorically and literally, that they drink from Jackie Robinson’s cup and that, to me, they are the inheritors of Jackie Robinson’s struggle and the bearers of his mantle.
In truth, we all should be.
It is not merely my morning cup of coffee; especially on days like today. It is a reminder that our work is not done in America. So up and at ‘em, clean yourself up with dignity, have a good breakfast, register to vote, and let’s all go out and make our country the sort of Republic we aspire for it to be. With the same nobility, strength, and grace as Jackie Robinson and so many others who came before us. #morethanavote
