Photo from Flickr: HamzaButt
Starbucks is a place where many people go to relax and hang out with friends. Imagine, you enter a Starbucks one breezy afternoon in Downtown Philadelphia, and the next minute you know, you are being arrested.
This happened to two unidentified African American men in a local Philadelphia Starbucks on Thursday, April 12, 2018. According to the New York Times, the two men walked into the downtown Starbucks and request to use the bathroom. An employee denied their request because they did not purchase an item. A few moments after their denied request, the two men took a seat in the store.
An employee came to them and had asked them to leave because they have yet to place an order. The two men explained to the employee that they were waiting on a friend for a business meeting. Moments later, the employee called the police to the downtown store to remove the two men. The employee mentioned to the police that the men were trespassing.
As police arrived to remove the men, other customers in the Starbucks decided to record the scene. In the video you will see three police officers surrounding the men, trying to remove them from the store. Soon after, the white business man they were waiting for arrives as police are interrogating the two African American men.
Their business partner, who then entered the store, was upset and called the scene ridiculous. He continued to ask the police why were they called to the store. The man kept asking the police if this issue had to do with their race. Police did not respond back but they did arrest the two African American men and escorted them out the door, as
Graphic by Alliyah Maduro
their business partner followed.
Starbucks tweeted out their apologies the following Saturday afternoon to their customers and the two men who were arrested. Later in the day, customers began #BoycottStarbucks which began to trend. Kevin R. Johnson, chief executive of Starbucks, was disturbed by the video. He stated that he would like to have a face-to-face apology with the two men.
The Starbucks Twitter account mentioned that on May 29, 2018 all Starbucks stores will be closed. All employees must attend a racial-bias training.
Johnson made it clear the Starbucks is against any discrimination and he will make changes to employee practices, so an incident like that one will not happen again. Johnson immediately flew to Philadelphia Monday, April 16, 2018. There he made an appearance on Good Morning America addressing the case and apologizing once more.
The video of the scene has been viewed over eight million times. The employee that sparked this incident had been fired for the Starbucks store but no one knows if she would transfer to another one.
