Buy Something or Leave: Starbucks Gets Woke on Race-Relations

Remember back in 2015 when Starbucks launched a campaign to have their baristas talk about race with customers?  It was truly a head-scratching moment.

During the height of the BlackLivesMatter related news stories, Starbucks decided they were gonna solve the national race-relations crisis spawned by stories about black men being shot by police officers.  So they did what any "woke" fast food chain would do: they instructed their employees to start talking to customers about race-issues.

The whole idea was really short lived. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz canceled the plan after about a week after he realized the type of stoned college grad students who work part-time making coffee at in his restaurants aren't qualified to explain the racial divide in the United States.  It was one of the dumbest marketing moves ever made by any national food brand anywhere.

Well, that was about three years ago, and now Starbucks is back in the news for more race related controversy.  This time they aren't trying to solve America's race problems. Instead, they're the cause.

Yesterday Starbucks said they will be closing all of their company-owned restaurants across the country on the afternoon of May 29 to conduct a "racial-bias education program".  This happened in the wake of another controversial news story that occurred when employees at a Starbucks in Philadelphia asked two loitering black men to buy something or leave.  The men refused to buy something, so police were called and the two men were detained.

Now about 8,000 of the company's locations will participate in a training program with nearly 175,000 employees trying to be woke on race.  This is a special kind of stupid for Starbucks. Imagine punishing 175,000 people because one person asked two people to follow the business's protocol for standard operating procedure.

Now imagine the same kind of controversy if the two men at the Philadelphia Starbucks had been white. Chances are you can't, because if the two men had been white, this wouldn't even be a news story. Seriously, it wouldn't even be a blip on the news radar.

This might come as a surprise to some of you, but Starbucks' loitering policy isn't a rule that's unique to black people.  I should know. I too have previously been asked to leave a Starbucks for loitering. No, really!  And I'm not even offended that it happened. The story isn't even that interesting, but in case you're wondering what happened, here's the skinny: I was in Chicago several years ago, walking around the Belmont & Clark neighborhood (a trendy area with lots of bars and nightclubs on Chicago's North side). It was late in the evening while I was waiting for a friend to meet me outside an extremely loud bar down the street from a 24-hour Starbucks. While I waited for my friend, I noticed the Starbucks was open and I figured I'd step inside to get out of Chicago's frigid January temperature. Once inside, a racist Starbucks barista asked me to purchase something or leave. Can you believe that? They were discriminating against me just because I'm a black man. Makes sense right? Except for just one problem - I'm not a black man and the barista was right to ask me to buy something or get the hell out. Think about it - if the Starbucks is the only thing open at 11 at night in a cold, densely populated area in Chicago, the interior of that coffee shop would be filled with hobos and crack heads if not for a "buy something or leave policy".

I didn’t even realize this was an obscure rule.  I always thought I had to buy something if I wanted to hang out in Starbucks.  Was I racially profiled BEFORE I stepped in the store?  No, that would be ridiculous.  It’s just a rule.  

At this point many of you might think I'm defending Starbucks. I'm not. Starbucks doesn't need me defending them. They're a giant corporation that caters to online Leftist political hate mobs and social justice warriors. No, I'm not defending Starbucks. I don't care if this news story hurts their business. I won't lose any sleep if, for example, that location in Philadelphia ends up closing permanently.

My only point is this: buy or something or leave. It's the American way.


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