Topic on Talk:Order of the Baristas

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Hi! Fair warning- I use the term global north/south here and while these terms are not without their problems, it is the most mainstream and sort of acceptable short hand term in certain cases when discussing international geopolitics and how with regards to many nations, there is a number of similarities in their colonial history and the way colonial powers have and continue to impact these countries. I myself am a member of the "Global South".

Coffee is a popular drink worldwide and largely originates from the Arabian Peninsula, and it is largely cultivated in disenfranchised regions of the world. Given that both of these groups tend to be whitewashed in history, the simplification of coffee as a recent Tim Hortons joke (especially given Tim Hortons is really North American and pretty Explicitly White in Name) has some unfortunate overtones of whitewashing and a colonialist narrative.

This is coupled and made worse by the following bits of lore: • Order of the Holy Beans: turns real world places where coffee is grown into fictional places and strongly mirrors language around the search for spices by European explorers and the resulting colonization. • Order of Orders: just kind of the same unfortunate overtones about the same as above but less direct. The Global North also has a long history of staging political events in the other nations both for economic greed and for political beliefs and the rest of the page is so close to that entire phenomena that it is difficult to read this with good intentions. Also really reminds me of both IRL and fictional orders with fascist or imperialist ideologies that style themselves from the same Eurocentric and Catholic movements. • King Tom Hurtin: once again, unfortunate overtones of a member of royalty [who has a really white sounding name] wielding mysticised authority over coffee growing nations, which are often former colonies and are members of the Global South. • Usage of the word "tribe": tribe can be a very loaded word with complicated connotation specifically regarding nationality, the way colonialism has impacted many sovereignties worldwide and is often used in a way thats reflective of stereotypes of non-White nations, including places where coffee is popularly grown such as Ethiopia and Kenya. It is worsened when combined with portions discussing Tom Hurtin "talking with tribes", both erasing the presence of actual Indigenous nations on unceded territory as well as affirming parallels between this page and real & ongoing colonization.

Given the complexity of these issues and that I am not one of the primary writers of this page, I'm talk paging this.

If no one objects I plan on:

changing "tribes" to "clubs", overall avoidance of turning the groups into nations or nation like communities.
remove mentions of coffee originating in America and changing it to imply it is simply imported.
reworking the OoHB to be only about brewing coffee, working with different farmers or growing coffee. Delete any and all religious overtones to getting coffee. Please google the three g's of colonization if unfamiliar with why every bit of OOHB reads as extremely colonialist.
deleting Order of Orders description. Turning it into a group dedicated to helping coffee drinkers and Baristas by helping create better orders. Derisively called the The Mysterious Hipster Society by non-Baristas (and some Baristas.)
delete mentions of Tom Hurtin and Canada being foundational or origin for general coffee related things.
overall pulling back of the Order as an explicitly religious organization. Overall edit of the page to lessen religious overtones while preserving substance and renaming all the orders to sound more like generic secret societies rather than one styled after Eurocentric and Catholic sects.
Changing the following names: Order of the Great Machinists-> MACHINSYNC (and turning them into more of a music group than a religious order)

Order of Holy Bean-> The Confessions of a Wallfilter Order of Orders-> The Starbucksitter's Club

Change page name to The Baristas (Community Lore)

The... General vibes of the Great Coffee War are kind of weird and possibly not in line with existing Flowers or MTs lore. I am unsure if the best measure is to delete it or what edits are necessary. Any opinions would be great. Currently going to delete the first section of the paragraph starting with the city being defenseless and pulling back on making this conflict sound like a real military conflict and instead lean on the go fish bits.