Tag: StarBucks

Financial Settlement, StarBucks

Set for Life? Starbucks CEO to Personally Mentor 2 Men Who Were Arrested at Philly Shop

The ReadyWriter

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson will personally mentor two entrepreneurs who were famously arrested while waiting for a friend at a downtown Philadelphia Starbucks last month.

Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson were guests on ABC’s Good Morning America on Thursday.

Speaking on behalf of his clients, attorney Stewart Cohen tells GMA, “The CEO of Starbucks is going to personally mentor these two young men going forward.”

The news comes a day after Nelson and Robinson settled with the city of Philadelphia for a “symbolic” $1 each. They also settled with Starbucks for an undisclosed, but similar amount.

Cohen added: “Not only do they have a seat at the table and not only do we have this settlement, but we have the beginning of a relationship” with the Starbucks CEO.

The two friends say the city also committed $200,000 to a young entrepreneur program.

But not everyone was satisfied with the settlement.

Many Black Twitter members expressed disappointment that they wasted their time and energy protesting outside Starbucks, only for the men to settle for $1 each.

Twitter activist Tariq Nasheed tweeted: “The Black men who were arrested at Philadelphia Starbucks “settled” for Starbucks to donate money to “young entrepreneurs”. Will these entrepreneurs be Black? These vague terms sound fishy”.

Racism in America

Starbucks CEO: “I’m going to fix it”

The ReadyWriter

In an emotional interview, the CEO of Starbucks, Kevin R. Johnson was confronted with the truth about racism in America. But racism is more than prejudice. It is, rather, the system by which prejudice is encoded into the laws and customs of a society so that, to take an example not quite at random, two black men can be arrested for waiting quietly on a prospective business associate to arrive for a meeting at Starbucks.

In the video above, the Starbucks CEO seem to sincerely express how he is going to fix the issue to understand how the incident happened and to ensure he doesn’t happen again.

Racism is alive and well in our society, so this conversation is far from over.

Racial Profiling, Racial tension, racial unrest

Protests and Outrage after two black men arrested at Philly Starbucks

The ReadyWriter

Protesters gathered outside a Philadelphia Starbucks on Sunday and planned to regroup again on today after two black men were arrested there last week when they allegedly refused to leave.

The original incident occurred last Thursday, when a Starbucks employee called 911 because two black men were sitting inside the café. Soon after they arrived, police handcuffed the men and escorted them out of the shop. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, who is black, said the men hadn’t purchased anything and refused to leave, which led to the arrest. Yet a protesting white women said, she’s walks in all the time to use the restroom without purchasing anything and was never arrested.

A video of the arrest and ensuing confusion went viral on Twitter.

Michelle Saahene witnessed the entire event, as she’d been at the Starbucks for nearly an hour. She told NBC News on Sunday that, as a black woman, she was slightly nervous when the police officers entered the coffee shop, but she was then shocked as the two men when they were approached by police officers.

After the two men were refused the bathroom, they just sat at a table silently and played with their phones as they waited for a friend, Saahene told NBC News.

“The cops were asking them to leave because they weren’t purchasing anything,” Saahene said. “[The two men] said they were confused. This is a Starbucks. Since when are people asked to leave a Starbucks who are just sitting there?”

Saahene said that a white man sitting next to her had been at the Starbucks for 30 minutes without making a purchase and a jogger came in and used the bathroom without making a purchase.

That’s one of the reasons she felt compelled to approach the employee who called 911.

“’Did you feel threatened’?” she said she asked the Starbucks barista. “She didn’t look at me. ‘Did you feel like your life was threatened?’ She still didn’t look at me.”

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson swiftly apologized that the 911 call was made and that the two men were arrested. He said that the company planned to investigate the matter and retrain its staff, but said the store manager “never intended for these men to be arrested and this should never have escalated as it did.”

Unfortunately it’s too late! We’re sounding the call to boycott “StarBucks” everywhere.!!