And We Know Why

Starbucks' infamous Rittenhouse Square store

The widespread media coverage of the arrests of Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, the two 23-year-old African-American entrepreneurs whose April 12th arrest in a Philadelphia Starbucks while waiting for an associate for a business meeting, has begun to fade.

But like the aftertaste of coffee, the deeper issues concerning the perception of race in America have not.

An afternoon of mandatory customer service training at 8,000 Starbucks locations on May 29th is certainly a step in the right direction.

An appropriate response that's obviously not going to undo centuries of American history, but it is significant from the standpoint of a major American corporation responding to racial bias by one of it's employees - one that clearly sends an important message.

Personally I disagree with conservative African-American commentator and Harvard-trained capitalist Hughey Newsome who complained that Starbuck's decision was "overkill", lamenting in Ayn Rand-ian indignation that "If I am a shareholder, and an African-American, white, Asian, or of whatever background, I am going to be furious at Starbucks." 

As an investor myself, I'd be a lot more pissed off at the manager who called Philly PD on those two dudes than I would be at Starbucks.

And with all due respect to Mr. Newsome, the the only thing that was "overkill" about this incident was said-manager's decision to try and have two guys handcuffed and arrested for waiting for someone to join them while sitting inside a coffeehouse whose business model is partially based on advertising itself as a place for people to meet and hang out.

In this current climate in America when the erratic and unpopular POTUS intentionally cultivates divisiveness based on race, ethnicity, religion and nationality, incidents like the Starbucks situation are exponentially more problematic for companies eager to avoid having their brands associated with Trump's reprehensible personal views.

Particularly for large nationwide restaurant chains and retailers whose brands, reputations and profits can all be negatively affected because of the misguided actions, words or decisions of one employee who allows their own personal bias to overshadow professionalism, a sense of decency and basic common sense.

Army vet Ernest Walker's service photo and ex-Chili's
manager Wesley Patrick who accused him of lying 

In some ways the Starbucks incident is reminiscent of the incident that happened at a Chili's back in 2016.

Remember the blowback Chili's received over it's initially-tepid response to the social media outrage after Wesley Patrick, a white ex-manager of its Cedar Hill, Texas restaurant accused an African-American Army vet named Ernest Walker of not being a real veteran and took away his food on Veteran's Day back in November, 2016?

That incident was sparked when an old man wearing a Trump t-shirt (really) sitting a few tables away inside the Chili's saw Walker eating with his service dog Barack.

This was four days after the 2016 presidential election when some elated Trump supporters were doing all kinds of random crazy racist shit to innocent people of color.

So the old man gets up, walks up to Patrick and claimed that Walker was "not a real soldier".

Patrick didn't call the cops like the Starbucks manager in Philly did, but he was caught on video as Walker presented his military ID card and Army honorable discharge papers as proof he'd served in the Army and was therefore entitled to the complimentary meal Chili's offered to all vets on Veteran's Day.

Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson

Patrick (I'm guessing he didn't vote for Hillary) still refused to believe him - then made matters worse by grabbing the takeout container with the rest of Walker's meal and snatching it away after the vet had already tipped the waitress.

You can bet that the executives of the progressive-leaning Starbucks paid close attention to what happened with that Texas Chili's back in 2016.

So no doubt it was one Hell of an April for the Seattle-based coffee franchise, just as it was for the two young men who were publicly humiliated by a Starbucks employee for "waiting while black".

For me, the second half of April was a blur of tax preparation and work, both of which involved varying degrees of customer service.

Along with the arrival of some fairly spring-like temperatures, the busy season for the apartment leasing season has begun to heat up - and that ratchets things up for folks like me who lease apartments in order to put bread on the table and pay bills.

For example, I stayed late after work three straight nights last week, mostly to help two different apartment applicants sort out some tricky credit and income screening issues in order to get approved.

Both individuals are white, and as you likely know, I am black.

Nuns and clergymen join black protesters marching
on City Hall for fair housing in Milwaukee, WI in 1967

It's been at least three weeks since the very first moment that they both entered my office (separately) to ask about renting an apartment, until late Thursday afternoon when I was able to get them both approved for their respective apartments.

At no point did I for even one second consider treating either of them differently because their skin color was different than mine.

Granted, I am strictly bound by federal and state fair housing laws that govern the treatment of anyone who seeks to lease an apartment.

Regardless of their race, country of origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, familial status or physical or emotional disability.

As I learned during a National Apartment Association professional certification training that I took back in December, the U.S. government created laws that prohibit discriminatory housing rental and sales practices based on those protected classes listed above under the Fair Housing Act - which was part of the sweeping Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Discrimination based on familial status (i.e. refusing to rent to someone because they're single, or have kids) or based on an individual's physical or emotional disability were added later under the Fair Housing Amendment passed in 1988.

Violation of those laws is a very serious issue for leasing professionals or property management companies found guilty of violating them - it can lead to termination, and or tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines levied against an individual or organization by state or federal agencies.

Nelson and Robinson settled with the city of Philly
for $2 for this arrest back on April 12th

So I'm very familiar with those laws, and because it's the right thing to do, I make adhering to them part of the basis of my sales techniques and customer services practices no matter who walks in the door of my office or calls me on the phone.

So aside from the blatant racial discrimination, I was genuinely floored when I first read about Nelson and Robinson being handcuffed and arrested for sitting in a Starbucks.

From the perspective of a property management professional who deals with a multitude of customer service issues on a daily basis, and as a former bartender who worked in the service industry for five years in New York City, the dustup over the Starbucks situation in Philly should never have happened.

As Kate Allison the CEO of PR outfit Karma Agency observed in an interview with WHYY:

"Starbucks has been from the very beginning a place where people go to gather - you go there to read, to work on your laptop, to have conversations with people. That is a huge part of the brand; it's a dimension that we've all sort of universally accepted. And that makes this particular situation feel all that much worse."

If you manage or work in an establishment where the business model is predicated upon making customers feel welcome and encouraging them to spend long periods of time inside said establishment, it's perfectly normal for some customers to prefer to wait until the person or party they're there to meet arrives before actually ordering something to eat or drink.

And yes, pointing a newly-arrived customer towards the restroom is a common courtesy, particularly when someone first walks in off the street - making people feel welcome is part of the job.

When I was bartending on the Upper West Side of New York in the late 90's and early 2000's, if a customer sat down at the bar and told me they were waiting for someone before ordering a drink or food, my stock response was to offer them a glass of water, maybe give them a menu and tell them to just let me know when they were ready to order.

How many times have you seen folks hanging out
at Starbucks without ordering?

Granted, those kinds of situations are very different than say a disheveled-looking homeless individual or panhandler coming into the establishment and wandering table to table shaking down customers for cash.

But even in those situations managers should know how to handle that in a respectful manner that reflects positively upon the business or establishment.

You don't need to be an asshole to enforce rules and treat folks with respect.

And you certainly shouldn't need to call the police to do it either - unless someone is getting violent or physically threatening someone.

According to an account of the Starbucks incident that Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson gave to the Associate Press, after the men were told they couldn't use the restroom because they hadn't ordered anything - they took it in stride.

A few minutes later when a server came by where they were sitting and asked if they needed help, one of them told the server they were waiting for someone to arrive and with that, the white female manager proceeded to dial 911 and call the police.

Which is pretty mind-boggling considering that Robinson claims he's been a semi-regular customer of that Starbucks location for eight years  - and he and Nelson were there for a business meeting regarding a real estate transaction.

Now I'm not suggesting the white female Starbucks manager is a "racist" because she called the police on two black men waiting for a business associate to arrive for a meeting.

Starbucks COO Rosalind Brewer and CEO Kevin Johnson

But her decision to do so suggests that her perception of what was actually happening was warped to some degree by her own personal bias based on their race.

There've been plenty of times I've been to a Starbucks and seen people camped out there working on a laptop, reading or talking with a group of people and it's not apparent that they're actually drinking or eating something they've ordered.


Four days after the incident, I listened to a segment on Morning Edition on WNYC on the continuing fallout from the Starbucks arrest, host Rachel Martin spoke with Starbucks Chief Operating Officer Rosalind Brewer, who is herself African-American, about the growing controversy.

There was no question that she was both personally and professionally disturbed about the incident, as Brewer observed during the interview:

"Just watching that video was quite painful. You know as an African-American executive myself with a 23-YO African-American son it was very difficult to watch. The police should not have been called in this situation."

Brewer also talked about the need for individuals, not just Starbucks employees or members of the Philadelphia Police Department, to take responsibility for the kind of racial bias that sparked this unfortunate incident.

Again, Starbucks' internal remedies aren't going to fundamentally alter the underlying issues that prompted the incident, but they could nudge the needle - and I think their executives deserve credit for a substantive response that wasn't pandering or just lip service.

CEO Kevin Johnson flew to Philadelphia to personally apologize to both men and called the incident "reprehensible" - Starbucks also quickly came to an undisclosed settlement with Nelson and Robinson.

Philadelphia PD Commissioner Richard Ross
addresses the Starbucks arrest

And the fact that the company will be closing over 8,000 different Starbucks on the afternoon of May 29th the day after Memorial Day for sensitivity training is pretty substantive.

Especially considering that they employ over 238,000 people worldwide.

It's been awhile since I've taken time to write here on my blog.

Partly because I've been busy.


But also because a lot of my sensitivity to these kinds of situations stems from an experience that took place when I was 12-years old and living in Bethesda, Maryland.

I was tall for my age, approaching six feet tall when I was 12, and as an African-American living in the mostly white suburbs of Bethesda, Maryland, that occasionally created problems for me.

"The Empire Strikes Back" was released in May of 1980, and while my mother took me and my brother to see it during a trip to Philadelphia, once school was out for the summer back in Bethesda, some friends and I made a long bike trip into downtown Bethesda to see the film again on a hot summer day at a theater on Wisconsin Avenue.

It was early afternoon and we were hot from the long bike ride so we were all eager to get inside the air-conditioned theater.

My friends rushed inside to get tickets and save seats and I lingered outside because I was having trouble with my bike lock, so I was alone when I got to the ticket booth outside.

The theater had one of those old ticket booths that stood alone outside the front entrance of the theater, but under an awning, and there was a white lady in her 50's with a beehive-type hairdo sitting behind the glass.

I slid my money under the glass partition and said, "One child please." after all I was 12-years-old and still qualified for a the child-price ticket.

She gave me this sort of piercing, hostile look, like she was angry, and said:

"No you can't. And you know why."

For a moment I just stood there dumbfounded and confused, at first I thought she was kidding, and then when her expression didn't change I feared she wasn't going to give me a ticket.

So I asked her what she meant, and she pointed her finger at this little black felt sign with white letters arranged on it with the prices and showtimes and replied:

"You have to be 12 or under for a child's ticket."

I protested and explained to her that I was 12, but she accused me of lying to get a cheaper ticket.


Like some white adults I encountered as a tall-for-his-age black boy in suburban Bethesda, they often mistook me for someone much older than I actually was.

And they sometimes treated me that way too - like the woman looking at me strangely from behind the glass and seeing something that I was not.

I recall standing there alone in front of that ticket booth on that hot summer afternoon hearing the sound of traffic on Wisconsin Avenue driving by just beyond the sidewalk, longing to be inside the cool darkness of the theater with my friends, but also realizing my parents were both at work and there was no way I could prove to the woman that I was 12.

What 12-year-old carries ID around with his or her birthdate on it? I certainly didn't.

I remember feeling helpless, angry, humiliated and offended because she didn't believe me and had accused me of lying - but the movie was about to start so with tears of anger moistening my eyes I pulled out another bill and paid the adult fare snatched my ticket and change and went inside.

I never told my white friends in the theater what happened to me and I never told my parents about it either - I knew what happened was wrong, but I didn't fully understand it and I was too young to be able to fully grasp or confront the complexities of racial bias that revolve around being a boy or man of color in America.

Even now, years later, I can still feel the sting of anger and humiliation - and the self-satisfied contempt in her voice still rings in my head.

Sitting here looking back on the incident, I'm reminded of the title of writer James Baldwin's voluminous collection of essays "The Price of the Ticket", which sits on my bookshelf not far from where I sit as I write these words.

So like many African-American men, I can understand and identify with the humiliation and anger that Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson felt as they were handcuffed and led out of that Starbucks by Philadelphia PD officers back on April 12th.

I understand how Ernest Walker felt when a manager at Chili's took his meal away from him and accused him of lying about being an Army veteran to get a free meal at Chili's.

I paid the price of the ticket that day in front of the theater because I had no other choice - and we know why.