Last night's pre-taped "Starbucks Verismo" sketch struck us (and others) as being pretty racist for asserting that black Starbucks employees are incompetent and stupid.

The set up for the bit is a commercial for an at-home, Keurig-esque machine called Verismo that would simulate all the miseries of going to an actual Starbucks. After the Verismo bungles the cheery, white lady's order, the voice-over introduces us to "Verquanica, a larger non-functioning machine for Verismo to talk to about you."





We have no experience writing comedy, but it seems that executing this skit without the racist machine voices would be easy enough. The scattered sugar packet milk mess is a start—let's say Verismo also conjures up grad students and tourists on your couch who steal your WiFi and refuse to purchase anything. And maybe it creates an insanely long line for your bathroom (that now constantly reeks of feces), and the machine also pipes Christmas songs performed by Death Cab For Cutie into your kitchen. And sure, the machine screws up your name and order but there are a variety of machine voices doing so (and they're not named "Verquanica"). That's a perfectly mediocre SNL premise.

But this isn't a thought-provoking riff on the absurdity of racist language, or a heart-breakingly sharp observation about racism in America, or complicated art that is worth strenuous debate. It's just lazy.

Some people (15-year-olds, etc.) did enjoy it though:

Finally, a funny SNL skit that slams Starbucks barristas.a tad racist?perhaps.But a wake-up call to Seattle that their staff can suck — jingleblues (@jingleblues) January 20, 2013

Thanks Racism, for finally making my coffee purchasing ritual a little easier (and my Pop Chips tastier). Nope.