The NY Times wrote a hit piece on Black Rifle Coffee CEO Evan Hafer. They quoted him but he says he never meant the comments against conservatives. The article, in general, was boring.
Mr. Hafer made a comment to the Times interviewer in relation to Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen who was attempting to protect an auto showroom when he became engaged in three assaults. He shot three in what looks like self-defense, and two men died. He was also asked about one of the men arrested in the Capitol riot who was wearing a Black Rifle Coffee hat.
“You can’t let sections of your customers hijack your brand and say, ‘This is who you are,’” Best told me. “It’s like, no, no, we define that.”
The Rittenhouse episode may have cost the company thousands of customers, but, Hafer believed, it also allowed Black Rifle to draw a line in the sand. “It’s such a repugnant group of people,” Hafer said. “It’s like the worst of American society, and I got to flush the toilet of some of those people that kind of hijacked portions of the brand.”
Then again, what Hafer insisted was a “superclear delineation” was not too clear to everyone, as [Eric] Munchel’s [Ultimate Fighting Championship contender] choice of headgear [on 1-6] vividly demonstrated. [He was wearing a Black Rifle Coffee hat]
“The racism [expletive] really pisses me off,” Hafer said. “I hate racist, Proud Boy-ish people. Like, I’ll pay them to leave my customer base. I would gladly chop all of those people out of my [expletive] customer database and pay them to get the [expletive] out.” If that was the case, I asked, had Black Rifle — which sells a Thin Blue Line coffee — considered changing the name of its Beyond Black coffee, a dark roast it has sold for years, to Beyond Black Lives Matter? Surely that would alienate the racists polluting its customer base.
Hafer began to laugh. “You wouldn’t do that,” I ventured.
“I would never do that,” Hafer replied. “We’re trying to be us.
Both Rittenhouse and Munchel are facing serious prison time and haven’t gone to trial yet.
Mr. Hafer said he is a conservative and was not talking about conservatives. He was only referencing racism and anti-Semitism. You can listen and decide for yourself.
If they don’t want to be misunderstood, they need to stay away from the NY Times and have better statements prepared. Actually, they should just stay away from all left-wing media and newspapers. Maybe Mr. Hafer should just stick to promoting his coffee when he’s with the enemy.
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