America, Starbucks and ‘retail racism’

April 21, 2018 07:35 pm | Updated 10:07 pm IST

Protestor Jack Willis demonstrates outside a Starbucks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Protestor Jack Willis demonstrates outside a Starbucks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

After the virtual networking platform Facebook, it was the turn of the bricks-and-mortar networking place Starbucks to apologise to the American public. The café chain that markets itself as “a third place between work and home” landed in a massive public relations disaster after one of its employees, for no apparent reason, called in the police on two Black men who were sitting in an outlet in Philadelphia on April 12.

Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, both 23-year-old entrepreneurs, were approached at their table by a staff member and were asked if they needed help. They declined and the police were called in. As the police handcuffed and led them out, a White man who they were waiting for arrived.

The entire incident was recorded by a customer, and the video has been watched millions of times. The racial profiling and the arrests on charges of trespassing have been widely flagged by online responders as “retail racism”.

The location of Starbucks’ stores is perhaps influenced by intrinsic racial bias, according to an analysis — the café chain is more inclined to be located in White, affluent localities

Starbucks says it is “a place for conversation and a sense of community”. Starting with a single store in Seattle in 1971, Starbucks now has 27,339 stores in 75 countries, more than half of them in the U.S. More than 8,000 of these stores are run directly by the company and the rest are licensed. It is a highly profitable company. In 2015, the company “encouraged” its staff to initiate a conversation on race with customers. The idea was to write “race together” on cups.

But Starbucks has not lived up to such loud declarations of its commitment to racial equality, a Bloomberg analysis of the company’s geographical spread, after the Philadelphia incident, showed. The location of its stores itself is perhaps influenced by intrinsic racial bias, the analysis suggested. In the Philadelphia region, postal codes with at least one Starbucks location in the area are 28.7% Black and 47.5% White. This compares with the overall population that is 41.5% Black and 35.3% White.

The particular café where the police arrested the two Black men is located in a neighbourhood that’s about 5.9% Black and 74.3% White. The trend is national — Starbucks is more inclined to be located in White, affluent localities.

‘Reprehensible outcome’

After the incident, CEO Kevin Johnson travelled to Philadelphia, met with the men detained, the Mayor, and the police chief and issued an apology. The employee who called the police is no longer with the company. The company has not identified the person. Mr. Johnson termed the incident a “reprehensible outcome”. Starbucks stores directly owned by the company will be closed on the afternoon of May 29 and 1,75,000 employees will be trained on dealing with unconscious biases.

The Black men spent several hours in a jail cell before they were released after midnight. The city’s police commissioner Richard Ross, a Black man, initially defended the police action, but later modified his statement. “I should have said the officers acted within the scope of the law, and not that they didn’t do anything wrong,” Mr. Ross said.

Being led out of a café in a handcuff and let off after a few hours is not the worst that a Black could face in the hands of the office. Mr. Nelson said in an interview that he feared he may not reach home alive that day. “Any time I’m encountered by cops, I can honestly say it’s a thought that runs through my mind,” Mr. Nelson said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”

Varghese K. George works for The Hindu and is based in Washington

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