Starbucks to close down stores to enforce racial-bias education
In a news release presented by the Starbucks Newsroom, the multi-billion dollar corporation will close 8,000 of it stores to educate partners on preventing racial discrimination.
This action was created after recent events at a Starbucks cafe in Philadelphia, where two black men were arrested for sitting in a cafe while waiting for a business partner.
"We will learn from our mistakes and reaffirm our commitment to creating a safe and welcoming environment for every customer," said executive chairman of Starbucks, Howard Schultz.
Starbucks plans to close stores from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 29 to conduct racial bias training. The store will remain closed once training is over and will re-open Wednesday.
This new training will also be implemented in the hiring process for new employees, according to the company’s release.
The company’s 175,000 partners will be able to “address implicit bias, promote conscious inclusion, prevent discrimination and ensure everyone inside a Starbucks store feels safe and welcome,” according to the release.
One of the many signs plastered outside the Philadelphia Starbucks. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.
Managers, shift supervisors and baristas will undergo training monitored and approved by national and local experts on the racial issues. Officials include: Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative; Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; Heather McGhee, president of Demos; former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder; and Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, says the website.
Experts will be in charge of making sure the training is accurate and serve to the utmost effectiveness of thousands of green-aproned employees.
Two black men, who remain unidentified, were arrested on Saturday, April 14 after a female supervisor at the Starbucks alerted police. Despite the two claiming that they were waiting on someone to order, the unidentified manager went ahead and called authorities.
After being held for almost nine hours after the time of the arrest, Benjamin Waxman, spokesman for the Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, announced that the office decided there "wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge [the men] with a crime.” The two were not charged for anything, authorities said.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney hopes to see change out of this debate. The mayor met with Starbucks to review the event and see what actions must be done to prevent this from happening again.
“This is not just a Starbucks issue. This is a societal issue. People can react differently to others based on skin color, and that is wrong. We have work to do, and we need to do so productively,” said Kenney in a statement.
The Philadelphia Starbucks closed after the event once demonstrations got too hectic and prevented the store from performing normally. The corner cafe of 18th and Spruce Street reopened today and business is said to be “business as usual,” said the Washington Post.
Two videos were recorded by fellow customers, including bystander Melissa DePino who released the video, which reached over 10 million views on Twitter. Six police officers questioned the two men before handcuffing removing them from the store.
Andrew Yaffe was supposed to meet the two men at the cafe on Saturday, April 14. The three men were scheduled “discuss business developments.” In one of the videos from the event, Yaffe can be seen saying “Does anybody this is ridiculous? It’s absolute discrimination,” to those present at the store.
The female supervisor, who called enforcement, is no longer at the store.
Lauren A. Wimmer, the pair's attorney, argues that the two men were doing nothing wrong, in fact, they were doing what a large portion of coffee shop customers do daily.
"How many times have we sat in Starbucks minding our own business, waiting for a friend to come, and then we order?" said Wimmer.