Posted on 05/29/2018 10:56:02 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Race Forward president Glenn Harris on why Starbucks’ mandatory anti-bias training is a good start, but far from a cure for what ails America.
Today (May 29), Starbucks is closing more than 8,000 stores for an afternoon while nearly 175,000 employees undergo training meant to address demonstrated racial bias. But what follows the training is even more important.
The arrest of Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson for simply existing as Black men at one of the coffee retailer’s Philadelphia locations last month is far from an isolated incident. Rather, the display of racism that drove Starbucks to respond is emblematic of the prejudice that people of color in this country face on every day.
Whether hosting a family cookout, shopping for a prom outfit, or sleeping in a student common area, the criminalization of Black and Brown people is a daily reality that can often lead to tragic results. This reality is bigger than Starbucks. It’s a national crisis. And all of us, including Starbucks, have a role to play in addressing it.
However it’s important to recognize that addressing racial bias can’t happen overnight. This work isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. And like a marathon, it requires commitment, time and investment. But the return is worth it—creating a more fair and unbiased workplace is beneficial for everyone.
It’s essential that implicit bias trainings aren’t touted as a golden cure for a society that is structured to drive inequitable outcomes and experiences for people of color. Implicit bias training is important, but it doesn’t result in systemic change. At best, bias trainings are a stepping stone to understanding how systems negatively impact people of color. At worst, they perpetuate the misunderstanding that addressing implicit racial bias lands solely on the shoulders of individuals.
Focusing on individual behavior is an important step, but is insufficient if what we want is to truly transform the status quo. Fixing a crack in the floor is futile if the house was built on an uneven foundation—we must fix both. When it comes to race, it’s not just about biased individuals; it’s about biased systems. Our workplaces are part of that system, and systemic problems require systemic solutions.
Systemic solutions require companies like Starbucks to examine the full breadth and depth of the negative outcomes experienced by both their customers and employees of color. For example, Race Forward knows from working with the restaurant industry that there are generally more people of color in the back-of-house—working as dishwashers, prep cooks and in other low-paying roles—while White staff are more likely to be in the front, earning higher wages as servers, bartenders and hosts. We also know that this racial segregation didn’t just happen on its own. There is a system that continually drives this reality, and it wasn’t created by any one individual. As a result, the restaurants we work with are figuring out how to address systemic inequity by examining their hiring and promotional policies and practices.
Starbucks closing its stores for racial bias training is a moment that doesn’t come often, but it also can’t be a singular moment. Tackling implicit bias is a critical step for any institution working to combat racism. But no single intervention is ever enough in a company this big, and dismantling racism requires more than one afternoon of training. Starbucks must also explore and address how racism plays out across the company, whether intentional or not. It’s about transforming the company’s workplace culture and examining the full scope of its internal and external policies—from the customer experience, to who gets promoted, to the demographics of the executive leadership.
Transforming the culture of any institution is complex and rigorous work, and we should all be interested in how companies of Starbucks’ scale address racism. The good news is that there is a growing movement of institutions—from government agencies to charitable foundations to nonprofit organizations—that are committed over the long term to advancing solutions that combat racism. Blossoming from these efforts is an expanding body of effective strategies to create and sustain racial equity. Starbucks has the opportunity to join this movement and lead other companies of its size in embracing their responsibility to address racism in this country. Here’s hoping company leadership embraces it.
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Glenn Harris has more than 25 years of experience training organizations both large and small on advancing racial equity. He is president of the new Race Forward, a national nonprofit that transforms policy, institutions and culture to advance racial justice and publishes Colorlines. Follow Glenn on Twitter.
They weren’t arrested for existing as black people, but for trespassing in breach of a reasonable policy. Sheesh! Ridiculous idiots. Except that it’s all racist, leftist agitprop identity politics.”
Exactly. Race hustlers are promoting the new narrative that they were arrested for being black in Starbucks. Sadly even a local conservative talk show host started his show with that premise.
I heard you can no longer order “black coffee” at Starbucks, that now you must order “without whitener.”
Notice how it’s always white people that need training when in reality blacks need training in how to obey rules, behave in public, and interact with police.
The left is always looking for ways to “prove” that the country is irreparably racist and that the only solution is to take all of Whitey’s money, and then eliminate Whitey.
They found it in the incident at a Starbucks. They are looking now, and always, for additional incidents which they can splash all over the news and say “see, Whitey is racist! we gotta take all his money and then get rid of Whitey!”.
Stupid. The CEO is a basket case.
Can anyone address the time period involved with the black guys in the Starbucks? Were they there 15 minutes prior to being asked to leave, an hour, half a day? I believe that makes a difference as to whether they were loitering illegally or just behaving as a normal customer.
I have searched in vain through all the msm articles I can find, but nowhere is the time stated. It is obviously known to the police, to the Starbucks and probably to the msm, but no one seems to want to publish.
It will either help or hurt with the accusations of racism and I think deserves to be published.
The time frame really doesn’t matter. They were in an urban Starbucks with a no-loitering policy. Which is a self-defense mechanism for urban businesses of all sorts, else they get inundated with urban outdoorsmen. Which is bad for business, very few paying customers want to sit next to a stinky drug/alcohol addicted / mentally ill person.
They were occupying a table, hadn’t ordered anything, were asked to become customers or leave.
They refused.
Cops were called, cops asked them to leave, they refused again.
They got arrested.
This isn’t that hard.
If a manager had told a white person to leave, and that white person would not leave, and then the police told the white person to leave, and he argued and refused to leave, he would be arrested too. That is how it works. I swear, this was a set-up.
At this point, any white person working for Starbucks is a fool. Get the heck out of that nut house.
“Starbucks Shelters”
So that is the plan.
They can now get govt funding for helping the homeless.
I heard it was to be called "Non-racist coffee".
Love it! African Americans arent dumb they realize the dems are useless
Begging the question. Nonsense.
The arrest of Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson for simply existing as Black men...
Trespass, refusing to leave, when requested by store personnel, then the police.
a society that is structured to drive inequitable outcomes and experiences for people of color.
Pony pellets.
All these lies are based on a web of lies. Don't be a punk, and odds are you won't be treated like one.
I have no more patience for these lies.
The lack of reasoning to write such a statement deserves a participation certificate. However, the writer still gets flunked and needs to be held back a year.
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