Starbucks (1971- ) is a White American chain of coffee houses that is found on every continent except for Antarctica. It is known for selling overpriced coffee and, to some, as a force for gentrification, globalization or US Americanization.
At first they were just a shop in Seattle that sold roasted coffee beans. But then in 1983 employee Howard Schultz travelled to Italy and fell in love with its espresso bars. The Starbucks website:
“He had a vision to bring the Italian coffeehouse tradition back to the United States. A place for conversation and a sense of community. A third place between work and home.”
Schultz bought out the company in 1987. From then until the Crash of ’08 Starbucks spread across the earth like a weed. Today in 2018 they have 28,039 shops in 77 countries and employ more than 300,000 people.
Business model: In the 1700s coffee houses provided free newspapers and let people hang out, knowing they would invite their friends and keep buying coffee. Starbucks does the same, providing free Internet.
Socially conscious: They pride themselves in being socially conscious. They even have a 12-page Conflict Minerals Disclosure statement and a 3-page statement on their Animal Welfare-Friendly Practices.
On their Company Information page:
“We make sure everything we do is through the lens of humanity – from our commitment to the highest quality coffee in the world, to the way we engage with our customers and communities to do business responsibly.”
Humanity: viral videos are now coming out that make it clear that their lens of humanity does not always extend to Black people.
In January 2018 in California, Brandon Ward, a Black man, a paying customer, was not allowed to use the toilet – while a White man who bought nothing was. As if it was Whites-only. Thus their “lens of humanity” and “sense of community”.
In April 2018 in the city centre of Philadelphia, just last Thursday the 12th, when a Black man asked to use the toilet he and his friend (also Black) were arrested. They were not doing anything wrong. True, they had not bought anything while waiting for a third person to show up – but White people do that all the time at Starbucks without the manager making an emergency telephone call to the police.
Six police officers arrived. When a customer asked why they were arresting the men, they said nothing. And charged them with nothing – while holding them for eight hours.
Kevin Johnson, the head of Starbucks, at first issued a weak apology and refused to say it had anything to do with race. But now that it has blown up in his face as a public relations disaster, now he is calling it “reprehensible” and promises to shut down 8,000 shops for a Tuesday afternoon in May (the 29th) to provide “race-bias education”. Lessons in being a decent human being.
I was going to talk about their mermaid logo and so on, but fuck that.
– Abagond, 2018.
See also:
- coffee – has a breakdown of where the money from a cup of Starbucks coffee goes. The cup is worth more than the actual coffee.
- shopping while Black
- also metropolitan Philly:
- also Seattle:
- Black Brute stereotype
- White Liberals
- Stuff White People Like
- gentrification
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Starbucks has become a marker of gentrification in an area.
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This is ironic.
In 2015, Starbucks’s image was destroyed in the eyes of white right-wingers after the coffee store chain launched an initiative “to stimulate conversation and debate about the race in America by getting employees to engage with customers about the perennially hot button subject.”
See http://fortune.com/2015/03/16/starbucks-baristas-race-talk/
And now this happens.
I believe the saying Actions speak louder than words seldom was more appropriate.
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Starbucks is not making much headway in Mumbai, India because the rents there are extortionate!
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I never saw any Starbucks in a neighborhood more than 50% black in the USA, but maybe the tide has turned?
Just a few months ago, the first Starbucks opened east of the Anacostia River in Washington, DC. This area takes up fully 30% of Washington, DC, the wealthiest metro area in the USA, but they only just got their first Starbucks. Washington, DC already has 94 Starbucks stores.
The concern is whether Anacostia will gentrify and push black residents out. It has already happened in many neighborhoods in DC already. Meanwhile, the entire Anacostia side of the river only has 3 supermarkets.
Starbucks to Open in Historic Anacostia
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Starbucks-to-Open-First-DC-Location-East-of-Anacostia-River-451498273.html
First stand-alone Starbucks east of Anacostia brings excitement — and worries about displacement
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/first-stand-alone-starbucks-east-of-anacostia-brings-both-excitement-and-worries-about-displacement/2017/10/22/adf0e6dc-b4e6-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html
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Please do a separate post on this.
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I’ve always thought of Starbucks as the McDonald’s of coffee houses. They’ve driven a lot of small immigrant-owned coffee houses and cafes out of business and replaced those truly unique venues with mass-market conformity.
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I hate it when after a white manager, owned by a white business, racially discriminates against a black person, the wronged black person meets with the company CEO or representative of the company in a public setting.
Had this happened to me, I’d refuse to meet with them unless certain conditions are met. and even then…IT WON’T BE IN THE PUBLIC EYE! i would refuse any and all attempts to get the meeting televised. I would only agree to meet with the CEO, if it would be closed to the media and not be open to public record.
The reason for this is to not get the company to garner any sympathy for meeting with me.
As every black person knows on this blog, white people and even some black people are quick to absolve a company, when they play lip service to the media by quickly meeting with the wronged black person.
The company’s motives are as transparent as crystal, they don’t give a rats a$$ about the incident that lead to a black person being humiliated and having their civil rights violated.
However, they are concerned about their image being tarnished as a white supremacist coffee hub. This is why they will lay out the red carpet for the two black men, while the incident is in the headlines.
Then, once everyone has moves on, its back to business as usual util another white supremacist calls the cops on another black person in a different restaurant chain owned by a white company.
Wash, rinse, repeat…..
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The same POS place that wouldn’t take my T-Mobile voucher and once had employees use toilet water to make their coffee. ……….. …… …..
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This episode is being presented as a typical case of racism against Blacks. It seems so really!
I would like to ask how other racial or ethnic minorities (Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, etc) are generally treated at Starbucks Coffee places in America. Are they also discriminated as Blacks are? Or are they exempted from such ill treatment?
Other question: how oft do similar episodes really happened to Blacks at Starbucks?
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@ munubantu
According to the linked article, similar incidents have happened at other retail stores in the same neighborhood:
http://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/us/starbucks-arrest-philadelphia.html
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@ jefe
I am so not in the mood to do a post on their mermaid logo.
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@ jefe
I remember one opening in Harlem when it was still majority Black. It was a sign that Harlem was changing.
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@ Munubantu
Here is another article that, while it doesn’t directly answer your specific questions, gives some perspective about how racial discrimination has been and continues to be a problem at numerous estsblisments, not just Starbucks:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/522322002
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That should be “establishments”
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Overrated and overpriced nasty coffee.
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re: Abagond’s
I have just been looking the Starbucks locations in DC and PG county.
I noticed that there are now Starbucks located near M st. SW and SE around the Waterfront and Navy Yard Metro stations. This area has been undergoing a massive rebuilding effort in the past 6-7 years with new apartments and condos full of white residents replacing the old black ones. Hence, the Starbucks start showing up.
Currently there is not a single standalone Starbucks not on a military base east of the Anacostia and Potomac rivers in DC nor in any of the communities bordering SE or NE Washington in PG county. This area houses over 500,000 people who do not have a Starbucks in their neighborhood.
The rest of DC on the west side of the Anacostia river has less than 500,000 people residing and some 94 Starbucks stores.
The closest standalone Starbucks in PG county in this direction are in Forestville, Clinton, and Accokeek, the former is what I would term on the border of an inner beltway area, and the rest are very new outer beltway suburbs. They have only been there for a couple years.
I wonder if a Starbucks popping up in 95% black Anacostia means that it will be gentrifying too, even if that gentrification is majority black.
They have just started construction of Suitland Town Center across the street from the Census Bureau / Suitland Federal Complex which employs 14,000 people in white collar jobs (and no nearby Starbucks). I wonder if one of the factors to determine the “success” of the project is if they can manage to convince Starbucks to open a store there.
I have always seen Starbucks as a sign of gentrification, I call it the Starbucks index. So I would imagine it is strongly rooted in Starbucks corporate culture to control potential black patrons (ie, to let white patrons or even upper middle class black patrons to feel safer).
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Starbucks was overrated even before these incidents. I always liked Dunkin’ Donuts better anyway!
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@ jefe
Which is what made the arrests seem like more than a freak accident but instead something that strikes at a deeper truth.
It seems we have roughly the same impression of Starbucks.
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would be interesting to see a map of standalone Starbucks stores (ie, those not in supermarkets or big box retailers or on military bases) superimposed against the racial dot map for the top 10-20 metro areas in the USA, and the calculated correlation between Starbucks density with racial densities. That would be more informative than holding a race-bias education day.
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Here in Canada, we have a chain called Second Cup. I prefer them, besides, they have delicious key lime tarts with a chocolate pastry shell! The other coffee chain is Tim Hortons. Personally, I prefer McDonald’s coffee, (1.00 a cup for any size right now) for convenience. There are also a lot of independent coffee cafes all over Toronto, I prefer these personally. People go to these independent ones when they actually wish to socialize. It depends on the neighbourhood also. Starbucks ca f off! I’d say go with local independent coffee shops if possible. Otherwise, get a good coffee/expresso maker.
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According to a poll, 48% of White Americans who have been following this story think the arrests were an isolated incident. Only a tenth of Blacks think so.
More:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-black-americans-starbucks-survey_us_5addf928e4b0b2e81131de51
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It must be nice to have the complexion for the protection. White folks can sit in Starbucks and use up the WiFi and never order anything. The thing about being black in a white space you can’t just be benign. That white woman was uncomfortable with the presence of two black men and called the police. This closing of the stores to conduct sensitivity training is not going to fix anything. Next week it will be another company with an egregious action.
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White people will call the police on black people in a heartbeat. I am glad those two gentlemen were not shot and killed.
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I came across an article this morning that exposed the number of 911 calls the Starbucks in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square made to the police before and after Holly Hylton began managing that particular store. The article notes:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/04/exclusive-calls-to-police-skyrocketed-after-hiring-of-philly-starbucks-manager-who-was-on-duty-during-starbuckswhileblack-arrests.html
To Holly Hylton, the police were her favorite hammer and Black, Asian or Arab individuals looked like nails.
(Thank you to Diary of A Negress for these images)
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The Philly police commissioner apologized to the men who were led away in handcuffs for waiting while Black:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/men-arrested-starbucks-feared-lives-113322067–finance.html
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Correction on the police code in a comment coming soon:
UPDATE 4/27/2018: The 3306 police code was corrected to mean “dispersing a crowd.”
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“in the year of 2016 only 11 calls were made to 911 from 1801 Spruce Street”
“Only” eleven calls to the police in one year seems like a lot for one coffee shop. Forty calls the next year is outright ridiculous.
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So this Holly Hylton is the one responsible for all this mess, She is just a paranoid white woman who is uncomfortable around black people. I truly wish this woman and other white people like her would do some serious self introspection. What is it about black people and other people of color that makes her uncomfortable and angry and fearful.
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@ Paige
Agreed.
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[…] Related post: Black Men Arrested for No Reason In Starbucks […]
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America is having a massive relapse.
Worse yet, the 2 black men that arrested started coonin later on.
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@ Heru Sankofa
Agreed. What those two men said to the media after their arrests was very disappointing. Not to mention unrealistic.
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Calling the police is the new weapon of the dominant culture to suppress Black people.
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I was just down rittenhouse square today but it’s just a richie rich white dwelling there’s a couple real expensive hotel-like apartment buildings. The stats on the 911 calling for fake vagrancy is bad. And clearly racially motivated. Let’s see how this mayor does with the project he’s claiming to start.
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^ I can imagine living in a neighborhood since childhood, where you knew all the merchants and neighbors.
But it started to get gentrified 10 years ago.
Then they opened a starbucks.
Suddenly you start to get the police getting called on you.
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Whenever a Starfcks or Whole Paycheck arrives in the neighbourhood, you know it has been gentrified.
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Lol the whole foods is like 25 blocks away
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Not really new, just taken to a ridiculous level.
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Starbucks called the police on a White woman for complaining about other customers speaking Korean. The Police escorted her out of Starbucks.
(https://youtu.be/nSDc4CPEvE0)
This was in Walnut Creek, California way back in Dec 2017, months before the incident in Philadelphia.
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Just wondering if any of the readers or commenters here will be attending the full day Starbucks training seminar. Maybe they can tell us about their experience.
A preview of the May 29 curriculum for 175,000 Starbucks partners across the country
(https://news.starbucks.com/news/starbucks-curriculum-preview-for-may-29)
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Today is the day!
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Saw Howard Schultz’s interview.
He seems to be clueless about Starbuck’s own corporate culture. He doesn’t even realize that it is a “white people” coffee house.
And he seems to think that the Philadelphia incident was an isolated case.
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Shutting down for one day is not going to end racism.
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I could careless about Starbuck’s and their liquid x hopped up coffee.whats so good about their coffee in the first place.
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