Don’t Just Boycott Starbucks. Boycott the Police
By now, many folks across the U.S. have heard about the Starbucks manager who called the police on two Black men in a Philadelphia store. The Black men were waiting for a friend to arrive when one of them asked to use the bathroom. The manager told them that they were trespassing because they had yet to purchase anything. Four uniformed officers arrived and arrested them. Their friend arrived during the arrest.
I witnessed a similar encounter. At Newark Penn Station, I watched a cop ask everyone in the seated Amtrak area if they had a ticket. If they didn’t, she told them to leave. One woman started crying. She’d been up all night, had just collected enough money for Dunkin Donuts hash browns, and didn’t want to sit on the floor to eat.
The police officer made the woman stand and eat outside of the seating area. Why does a cop have the power to manage Amtrak’s seating area? Who or what are they protecting? Additionally, there was ample seating and it was inside a public building. This police officer’s actions did not solve any problem. She used her authority and ability to use violence to make a woman stand up to eat hash browns. This act does not stop the problem: homelessness. It shifts the problem to another area. A social worker or community organizer could have been paid to connect that woman to the services and just outcomes she…
