Following the mistaken arrest of two black men at one of his company's Pennsylvania stores back in April, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has announced that he's going to make things right – by opening up all Starbucks restrooms to anyone and everyone who wants to use them, including non-paying customers.
From here on out, every Starbucks store in the country is essentially now a public restroom, which Schultz believes will make his company more "inclusive" and racially sensitive – because apparently the shutting down of all Starbucks stores back in April for mandatory employee "racial bias training" wasn't enough politically correct showmanship for the coffee giant.
The most recent decision was made after a store manager at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square called the police last month on two African-American men who had allegedly asked to use the restroom without purchasing a drink. An employee told the men that the restroom was for paying customers only, after which the men proceeded to sit down at a table without ordering anything.
The two men later told authorities that they were waiting for a third person to arrive for a business meeting to discuss a real estate project before ordering their drinks. But they didn't make it that far, as police allegedly showed up at the same time as the third person to arrest the men, who store employees apparently thought were squatters.
Video footage of the incident that was posted to Twitter shows the two men being handcuffed by a team of police officers, one of whom was black himself, while other customers in the store are heard trying to explain to the officers that the men "didn't do anything." But the men were walked out of the store anyway, hands cuffed behind their backs.
Black men's attorney says her clients were arrested for having a meeting – but they didn't order anything and it hadn't even started yet?
Social justice warriors (SJWs) were quick make their voices heard outside the Starbucks in question, including one couple who painted a sign that they used to protest, stating, "BE BLACK IN THIS STARBUCKS = GET ARRESTED #BLM." Others, including the woman whose footage of the incident went viral, also made a point of chastising white people, whom she says are making false assumptions that "there must be something more to the story."
Apparently there wasn't, and the two men, dressed in sweatpants and sweatshirts, really were there to discuss property business. It was an apparent misunderstanding that quickly devolved into yet another point of contention in America's ongoing race wars. This is the argument put forth by the two men's attorney, anyway.
Lauren Wimmer claims that the video footage, which begins after the first man is already in handcuffs and the other is in the process of being cuffed, "essentially speaks for itself." Even though it shows nothing that occurred just prior to the arrest, Wimmer claims that the two men "were doing what people do every day: they were having a meeting and they were undoubtedly singled out because of their race."
This is an interesting claim for Wimmer to make, seeing as how the official story prior was that the men hadn't yet ordered a drink, and were not yet involved in a meeting as the third member had not yet arrived. She also makes no mention of the bathroom incident, which means it remains unclear precisely what took place just prior to when the police were called.
But Howard Schultz sure didn't waste any time virtue signaling and once again pimping his entire company out to the whims of SJWs everywhere, who are using the incident as more "proof" that black people are being targeted by white people as part of systemic "racial bias." At the same time, Schultz apparently also erroneously stated that, despite his new bathroom policy, he doesn't want to see Starbucks stores become public restrooms.
Sources for this article include:
Please contact us for more information.