Starbucks attempts to make amends

By: Marielle Buffamonte

Starbucks management has announced that it will be temporarily closing the doors to 8,000 continental stores to undergo bias training for almost 175,000 employees. This decision comes in response to an incident ending in the arrest of two African American men in a Philadelphia location last week.

The incident occurred when the two men who had been waiting around for a friend were asked to use the bathroom. The manager on duty refused the request, as the two men had not purchased anything. The men were eventually asked to leave. When they refused, the authorities were notified, and eventually removed the men from the property.

The Philadelphia Prosecutor’s Office dropped the charges because there was not substantial evidence that a crime had been committed.

The company has confirmed that the employee that had called the police have been fired.

Kevin R. Johnson, the company’s CEO said in a statement announcing the bias training program, “I’ve spent the last few days in Philadelphia with my leadership team listening to the community, learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it.”

The program that is shutting down stores on the afternoon of May 29 will also be included in the training program for new employee hires.

While I believe the Starbucks management needed to do something to quell the public uproar that this incident has sparked, I don’t believe that they should have had to do anything at all. There is nothing that incriminates any of the employees for responding with racial bias.

If someone is loitering and benefitting from an establishment without paying, a company has every right to ask them to leave, regardless of their description. I am simply not convinced that the reason that these two individuals were asked to leave was because of racial bias. Of course, if other details come to light that validate the claims of racial bias against the employees, then I would reconsider.

I really dislike when any group attaches importance onto an event that is not relevant. I was not there that day, and have no way of knowing for sure, but I just don’t see a problem with the way that the Starbucks employees responded.

I think that the actions taken by Starbucks so far has been a good start at making amends.

I do believe that this was an unfortunate situation to occur, but it was never something that needed to be assigned to a movement. We must remember that businesses have certain rights just as the customers that they serve do.