Last week, Starbucks was thrust into the national spotlight when a white barista called the cops on two black men who were waiting for a friend without buying a drink. The company and barista received swift backlash nationwide for this “reprehensible outcome” of racial bias.
The company and CEO have apologized and are responding to the incident by shutting down more than 8,000 stores nationwide on March 29th to conduct anti-bias training. They are working with Bryan Stevenson of the Racial Justice Initiative, Heather McGhee, the president of public policy group Demos, Sherrilyn Ifill from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and Jonathan Greenblatt from ADL to create the training. They’ve got the big names, but will they get big results? At The Winters Group, we believe in a developmental approach to this work — not just one day, one training, but an ongoing process of learning and transformation. It remains to be seen what will happen after the March 29th training, but if systemic racism and unconscious bias could be fixed in one day, we probably wouldn’t be here right now. Kudos to Starbucks for taking responsibility for this moment, but will they take responsibility for the longer process?
Watch the two videos below, one of Starbucks Executive Chairman Howard Schultz and the other with the two men who were arrested, and let us know what you think in the comments.
