Agree or disagree with calling the police?

@revenant Yes, but would they have treated someone with blue eyes and blond hair the same way? I promise you, an issue would not have been made if I, a light-skinned female who dresses appropriately in public, had chosen to sit at a table for a bit. That's institutional racism, a form of bias so conditioned and so ubiquitous that many people never even sense it.

@Graylight pffttt Make a poll and ask what kind of people would refuse to pay AND leave too and Make a big mess about it ? That was not racism at all. Poor victims !

@revenant
This is a combination of an overzealous store manager and the Philly police department mishandling of the situation.

I am at a Starbucks nearly every day, and I witness similar stuff on daily basis, but it's different, depending on where you are and who you are.

A few weeks ago, at a Starbucks, in the city where the Starbucks CEO lives, the store manager called the local police, to deal with someone who was asked not to come back to this store. He was black. When the cops came, they sat down with him, explained the situation, and to make a long story short, they helped him find a place to go to, where he has not been warned not to trespass. No one was arrested, the cops were professional, despite the guy's verbal assault, and they went out of their way to help him.

At least a couple of times per week (Wednesdays in particular), I sit at that same store, for hours, and sometime, I don't order anything. No one has ever approached me or accused me of loitering.

When I'm at the Pioneer Square Starbucks, the place is full of homeless people. The rule is that they can use the bathroom, and sit down, but they cannot sleep. So, the store policy is to send an employee to wake them up, when they nod off, and ask them to go to the shelter across the street. I've never seen the cops called once.

There is racial bias, but Starbucks is one of the good companies. The CEO is shutting down all 8,000 company owned (not affiliated) stores, for a half day of training. The manager of the Philly store in question, is no longer with the company. This will help some, but the Philly police department could use more than just a little.

@Graylight It was reported that the manager said she had called the police numerous times in her year of working at Starbucks. It wasn't mentioned about the races of the people she had complained about in those complaints.

@PoetryNEmotion Could be she has power issues and not race issues at all.

@Graylight I can't say. I only saw this on the news here briefly today. I don't know enough about it.

@Graylight Doesn't matter at this point because she quit.

@Northwest hmmmm I live in Tim Horton land and that would never happen. Those places are businesses not charities !
I could not imagine a business accepting homeless people either. I worked with them and regardless of whether or not circumstances are their fault or not...nobody wants to take a risk with mental instability, alcohol, bottles, drugs, prostitution and all kind of stuff going on. Even knife attacks.

You got to be careful with those people and I do not imagine many wanting to share toilets either. YOU NEVER KNOW. If someone goes mental on you, steal your stuff, threatens you..I imagine that the establishment would be responsible.

The CEO is being ridiculous and instead of taking the manager's side for she only did her job anyway, he chose to throw her under the bus. She followed POLICY.

If 2 white guys had been thrown out nobody would ever hear of them.

I certainly feel that the race card was played max.

If starbucks wants to be a charity then it should say so.

@revenant
I empathize.

The CEO is not being ridiculous. These were not mentally deranged, or homeless people. They were singled out, when white customers, doing the same thing, were not challenged.

The whole thing could have been avoided, had the police also been properly trained in de-escalation, instead of taking it personally, and escalating.

@Northwest I saw the tape. And I would agree that the law should have been the same for everyone if the white guy was telling the truth for the manager insisted that she did not give the code. The black guy was acting all obnoxious though.

Not sure if the police had a choice with those 2 though.

Most homeless, even those with mental disorders, don't go around town dangerously threatening society. Addiction cause no outward disturbance and addicts, believe me, know how to hide their sh*t. When's the last time you saw a bunch of suburbanite kids crushing up oxy's? Because they're part of the addicted community you're referencing.

Knife attacks? I'd say clearly rage and politics are more likely t cause violence than some random urge on the part of a man without a home to sleep in. As for what's on a toilet seat, two things. One, urine is completely sterile. Two, if you think status or appearance have much to do with carrying disease, I'm afraid you're gonna have to learn that lesson the hard way.

And what's with coming down on the homeless anyway? These were two citizens employees called "well-dressed black men" when talking to the police.

@Graylight well your homeless people are not the same as my homeless people lol. Sure...and they would nnnnnnnnneverrrrrrrrr harass anybody else for a tip or a cig etc ?🤓

ahah you do not know what goes in toilets lol !! Obvious !

the well dressed 2 guys ? they looked like total bums lol. If that is called professional, a birkini could do next time 😁

@revenant They were in a sweatshirt and a shirt and jacket, respectively. Good God, if appearance is grounds for a moral judgment on someone's economic status, let's start blowing up ALL the Walmarts. Immediately. And let's start with the girls who think it's appropriate to wear pajamas and slippers grocery shopping.

THESE WEREN'T HOMELESS MEN. They were waiting on a friend. Any discussion you're attempting regarding the deadly, dirty homeless is completely moot here. And maybe I'm just extraordinarily lucky, but in all the sitting and waiting I've done in my entire life, never once have I been hassled by law enforcement. Hmm.

@Graylight look at Northwest post !

My idea of professional is not sweatshirts and jeans and uncut hair no. They could have been doing anything. You believe everybody at their words ?

And then am not american so my standards are stricter.

@revenant Tell me why Starbucks is closing all their stores on May 29 for "racial bias training" if what the manager did wasn't even racist to began with? Tell me why the former Starbucks manager is willing to sit down and talk with the men who she had arrested and maybe offer them jobs if she felt that she did the right thing? Come on now.

These guys are total bums?

I've lived in the Northeast, the Deep South. By any calibration of race, these just look like regular guys to me.



@revenant

@revenant
Just about anyone can be triggered. Put yourself in their shoes. You're a black person, sick and tired of being looked at with suspicion, and here you are, waiting for a friend, and want to do what anyone else, who does not have the same skin color of yours, should be able to do.

Except, you still get harassed. Once the adrenaline is flowing, logic no longer applies. This is why it is up to the professionally trained police officers, to de-escalate.

I witnessed something similar, at another Starbucks, not too long ago. The guy they wanted to leave the store, was black. When the cops arrived, they ignored the verbal assault, and by the time it was over, he was thanking them for helping him out.

This is par for the course for police officers, and it's the job. I don't buy into the 'you need to bow down to cops' thing. It's their job to handle the situation, modulo, of course, any life/public threatening issues.

@CopperCicada They are dressed about the same as the white guy, arguing with the cops that he was doing the same thing, and he was not harassed. The only difference is their skin color. The cops should have been more professional, considered the circumstances and de-escalated. They could have all shared a latte, instead of hauling them out to jail.

@Northwest But they weren't dressed "professionally," and God knows when I need a quick cup of $7 coffee, I put on my best dress and heels so as to prove my community worthiness.

@Graylight They're dressed better than most of the Starbucks corporate employees do.

@Graylight wicked burn.

that's sort of it. that's why i posted the tale of my own starbucks use and misuse. what is tolerated and not tolerated says something about just that. community worthiness.

college kids here are wearing pj's and slippers to starbucks.

@CopperCicada Not the black students nearly so often, I'd wager.

@Graylight No. The black students generally have to legitimize their coexistence.

@CopperCicada Honestly, and we're way off target from the original post here, but I think if it's a cultural expectation that black fathers instruct their sons on how to react to inevitable police encounters, whether or not we have racial issues is kind of a simpleton's question.