You would be hard pressed to read into coffee’s history and not see its dark past. While I believe the coffee industry can have a bright future and teach other industries how to overcome their own bleak history, we have to be clear headed about what grasp colonialism still has on the industry. Profit is kept in the global north, while the burden/risk of producing with little to no profit is located in the global south. Even today we still see wealthier international people going into coffee producing countries, purchasing land for cheap, creating their own farm, mill, etc and taking land and sales away form people who only have coffee to provide for themselves. Many of the coffee farms touted in competitions by baristas and sought after by roasters are still large wealthy farms that have benefited from the current system. A lot is needed to move this industry and world out of the grasp of colonialism, and right now I’m feeling like the posting of some picture of a random non white coffee producer holding a coffee plant (probably sent along by some importer) isnt really what is going to cut it.