White Privilege is Getting Freebies for Loitering at Starbucks
The past week has not been great for Starbucks.
Last Thursday, two black men were filmed being arrested at a Philly store and spent the evening in jail for sitting at a table and quietly waiting for a third party to arrive for a business meeting. And Monday, a black man was refused the right to use the bathroom in a Starbucks because he hadn’t purchased anything— this, immediately after a white man did the same thing, got the bathroom code, and experienced exactly zero negative consequences.
Today I’m not going to get into the fact that calling police on a black person who is not in the process of committing a crime is always an act of deadly aggression that amounts to racial terrorism.
I’m going to tell you about the White Lady Experiment my friends Heather and Sara invited me into yesterday...
We went to the whitest Starbucks we could think of and we sat there for an hour doing nothing but being obnoxious.
We used their bathrooms.
We talked loudly, sometimes using expletives (that was mostly me), about the injustice and destructiveness of white supremacy in black lives, particularly when expressed through corporate and institutionalized racial aggression.
We prominently displayed a sign that said, “This IS about Starbucks, and all businesses, and You and Me. #ExamineYourBias #BlackLivesMatter.”
And, notably, we did not purchase anything.
The consequences of our actions were astoundingly unremarkable:
Police were not called.
We were not asked to leave.
Rather, we were offered free samples of a new coffee drink.
Extract from the Original article by Amy Courts , in Who We Choose To Be with Amy Courts .
Tags
Who is online
427 visitors
White privilege...
I am SHOCKED that this story hasn't gotten any comments on Newstalkers. SHOCKED I tell you.
Yes indeed, John... It is SHOCKING!
Why... If I were the least bit cynical, I might imagine that the reality of White privilege is so perfectly demonstrated here that the many members who have denied its existence feel rather uncomfortable....
By the way, the chief of police in Philadelphia has apologized for saying that the police officers didn't do anything wrong.
Actually, this story doesn't shock me, I've been experiencing racial bias all my life in one way or, another. I'm white in case you didn't know this but, I've been with friends, in-laws and, my wife and, daughter when we have experienced racial bias on several occasions. The same places that treated us with bias didn't treat me with bias when I went in alone or, with white friends but, with family and, friends who are black they were treated like they weren't there or, we were completely ignored until we made a stink over the rudeness of the employees.
For many years (in France), I played basketball on a team with players of several nationalities, both Black and White, Christian and Muslim. There was ONE native-born White French citizen.
I was the only one who was never ID-checked by the police.
Additional irrelevant item: the Muslim players were of several different national origins. Algerians and Senegalese do not agree on much, so of course they never agreed on "official sundown" during the fasting month of Ramadan, the moment when they could break the fast, on those long away-game bus rides. So... I made the call. You can't imagine thhe feasts that they brought along in their Tupperware boxes.
I can, I've worked with Muslims before and, in the restaurant business you can't imagine the feasts they had at that time. My first experience with a Muslim was during my time in culinary school, we would break for lunch and, I would watch him pick around things that he wasn't able to eat because of his belief and, then when class ended he would get out his prayer carpet and, say his prayers, with me watching over him to make sure no one bothered him, I considered it a privilege to do this for him.
Cool story.
I saw him years later, when I was working at the Hyatt and, he said that he had a restaurant in New York that was doing well, that was in 1990, I wonder if he is still running the place or, if he moved on.