In fact, the woman who posted the video says she regularly sits with her computer at Starbuck’s for hours, using its wifi, and “somehow” it was never an issue.
This whole things was created by a bunch of morons – all three groups. The manager is a moron for even worrying about it and calling the cops. The cops are morons for not telling the manager she is a moron and arresting the guys. The guys are morons for not just saying the manager is a blankity blank and moving on to Dunkin Donuts. All the rest is noise.
Yeah, I have been one of those frustrated persons whom got annoyed when I couldn’t find a seat at Starbucks when I was trying to set up my tablet using their wi-fi.
Oh no, the guys waiting for their friends are not morons. Why should they have to move, because the color of their skin makes a manager suspect them of potential trouble? I have no congratulations for Starbucks. If there had not been white people there to testify to the men’s innocence, do we honestly think this would have hit the news? Are there not plenty of folks saying "well, they must have done SOMETHING’ or “how is a manager supposed to know? Better to be safe” or even, “use common sense”. The manager used her common sense – which told her that black men sitting idly must be plotting something awful.
But agreed – the police? Why on earth didn’t they just say “hey lady, calm down, it’s all fine here” and leave?
Business schools will now be studying Starbucks vs Delta.
Why should they have to leave because the manager is a racist? Anyway, they were waiting for a guy who was going to discuss a business opportunity with them. Do they want the guy to come to Starbucks to meet them, and not find them? Nope nope nope.
Don’t blame the victims of racism. Blame the racist manager and the racist cops.
@greenbutton – why should they leave? So that they would spare Starbucks thoroughly deserved ridicule and keep the rest of us white people in the blissful ignorance of what it feels like to be black in this society?
(And besides, they were waiting for a third person.)
I didn’t say they should move – I think you are misattributing comment #21 to me?
Starbucks serves millions of customers every day and is likely at over a billion customer visits per year. One unfortunate incident out of billions of customer visits does not equate to a trend.
@greenbutton - It appears I misattributed… many apologies 
@roelisburger what’s your point?
Apparently it makes them “racist” in many peoples eyes.
I think the thread is saying the opposite – that Starbucks, as a corporation, is trying to demonstrate that they are not going to tolerate the incident, and use it as a teachable moment. If a billion people are served, and this happens rarely, that’s fine. But that doesn’t make the treatment of these particular people okay. We do not live in generalizations, we live in the particulars of daily life, where the rubber meets the road, and we have to do better to have better.
The Starbucks culture does not condone this sort of thing. It is being addressed in the best way possible. I work for a retail company with not nearly as many stores as Starbucks, but we still have a lot in every state. We have a great culture, but with 27.000 employees, i can assure you that there are a few bad apples and more than a few who turn out to not fit our culture. We do the best that we possibly can and it is unfortunate when the behavior of an employee reflects on the whole corporation.
I never once blamed Starbucks as a corporate entity for this incident. This one manager at this one store overreacted, and because the results of her actions were captured on video, it became national news. To me it was shocking because this just doesn’t happen at Starbucks. All across the country, millions of customers walk into Starbucks and some stay for extended periods of time. Some meet clients, family members, spouses, students they tutor regularly, colleagues, book club members, and knitting groups at Starbucks. Not all of those who visit will buy food or drink while there, but I suspect most will purchase at least one item during the course of their stay.
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve visited a Starbucks coffee shop and been treated warmly by the employees. Never once have I felt racial animus at any of those locations, and I often encounter other minority customers at these locations as well. This was an unfortunate outlier as far as I can tell, one that will now cost the company dearly in revenue and corporate image (for a short time). The CEO did well to tackle the fallout of this incident head-on. The manager’s stupidity (most likely racially motivated) cost her her job, and I’m guessing this will negatively affect her family financially. I hope she learns a valuable life lesson from this incident.
You would be surprised how little revenue this is going to cost Starbucks.
I don’t think this will cost Starbucks, because the management is repudiating the manager’s actions and trying to make it right (as they should).
By the way, the two black men, Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson, arrived at the Starbucks a few minutes early for their scheduled business meeting with Andrew Yaffe. Nelson asked for the restroom code and was denied. They went to a table to wait, and were immediately approached by a store employee asking them if they were going to purchase something. When they said they were just waiting for their meeting, the manager called the police. All this happened in the space of less than five minutes, from when they entered to when the manager called police.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/04/19/they-cant-be-here-for-us-black-men-arrested-at-starbucks-tell-their-story-for-the-first-time/
@“Cardinal Fang” The more details that come out, the madder I get.
- The gentleman were there for 5 mins before she called the police.
- Not only does she call the police, she calls 911! This was never an emergency and folks should be incensed that she wasted 911 resources.
- Because they were there for such a short time before cops were called, no one can convince me this wasn’t racially motivated.
- The one thing I am not reading is that she has been terminated, I see that she has been removed from that store , which is not good enough.
- When will non POC stop recognize it is not okay to call cops to deal with your racial insecurities? This could’ve been ended very badly.
I haven’t either. And she needs to be fired. I seldom go to Starbucks because I find their products overpriced. But I have used it for all sorts of meetings. Sometimes we buy something, sometimes we don’t. I used to study there often back in the day. I never had an issue. This was one racist manager and I have no issue going to Starbucks in the future. I appreciate the prompt and appropriate response for the most part. But the manager needs to be fired.
Six cops go to Starbucks… Too bad the kid trapped in the minivan didn’t get the same attention.