Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has decided to use his chain of coffee houses to provoke a national conversation about race. By encouraging baristas to write slogans–like “Race Together”–on coffee cups, Schultz hopes that customers and employees will have honest discussions about the racially based disparities still prevalent in the U.S. Yesterday, at the company’s recent shareholder’s meeting, Schultz defended the policy against a fairly steady stream of ridicule.

Schultz can do whatever he wants with his company, so if he wishes to turn it into a political platform, that is his decision. The market will either reward, punish, or forget that choice. I will quibble instead with some of the assumptions built into Schultz’s thinking.

Schultz, like many, assumes we are in desperate need of a “conversation” about race. As pointed out elsewhere, we too often fetishize the concept of dialogue. The solution to the world’s problems, it seems, is just to get everyone together in a room to hash (or in today’s world, hashtag?) it out. That presumes far too much. To believe that racism could be cured through conversations overlooks the root cause of it, the depraved nature of human beings. Such twistedness is not redeemed over a skinny latte. Could the KKK have been defanged by lifting their hoods long enough to sip comically overpriced beverages? To that extent, calls for dialogue are misplaced if we are really talking about racism. It is far too insidious to buckle under bromides.

If we are talking about sincere disagreements over the state of race relations, or how government should address race, the issue is not “awareness.” We do not lack awareness, as such pithy expressions assume, we lack consensus, and consensus will not flow along with the liquid gold that Starbucks dispenses. Consensus eludes us because of race’s complexity. If we cannot find consensus on health care, energy policy, education, or the scope of government, how can we arrive at conclusions over how to address our longest-standing national dilemma?

“Race Together” is a given for all but the backward. How to achieve it? That is a conversation worth having, but probably not at Starbucks. While I am grumpy. Waiting for caffeine. Please. I would rather not be provoked into discussions of wage disparities, or marriage and incarceration rates with my friendly neighborhood barista.