The author of this piece wishes to remain anonymous.
For the past two weeks, we’ve heard Starbucks CEO, Kevin Johnson, express his outrage and confusion as to the arrest that took place in one of their Philadelphia locations on Thursday the 12th. In every interview, Johnson expressed that he felt what transpired was ‘wrong’ and how he and his ‘leadership team’ are working to understand how it ever could have happened. Sans leadership team, and having worked at a Starbucks for over a year, I have some ideas.
In some areas, Starbucks’ official policy is vague and is sometimes left to the discretion of the store or district manager. What seemed to be understood was that if your store had a significant problem with people taking up seating without buying anything, you could ask them to either make a purchase or give up their spot. As a policy, it makes sense, but the way stores enforce it can get extremely problematic.
In leaving that authority with the store manager, you’re essentially leaving it to their personal racial or economic bias.
If you’ve ever been to a Starbucks, you’ve seen tons of people in the cafe reading, conducting meetings, or writing screenplays. And if they’re passably white and or well-off, the validity of their presence is never challenged — whether or not they have a Starbucks cup in their hand.
As a supervisor at an urban location, I’ve been asked by my manager to confront people countless times; usually due to people nodding off, being inebriated, or causing a disturbance. In fact, I once had to ask a woman to leave after I witnessed her take a discreet swig of her Natty Light tallboy in the lobby.
There have been a handful of instances, especially involving people affected by extreme poverty, where I felt a decision was unnecessary, or that rules were disproportionately enforced. This is extremely uncomfortable when you consider that many people consider Starbucks to be a public place. Many of us have gone to our local coffee shop to work on a group project or write a paper without even considering spending 5 dollars on a drink, yet we never feel unwelcome or out of place. Someone who is perceived to be homeless, however, might be asked to give up their seat if they can’t shell out some cash.
In a video address on the official Starbucks website, Kevin Johnson described the company’s ‘ambition’ for social responsibility.
“We work to be a different kind of company, a company that believes in using our scale for good. A company that believes that the pursuit of profit is not in conflict with doing social good.”
Though the CEO’s calculated words seem comforting, he describes a nearly impossible reality. The idea that a fortune 500 corporation can pursue profit and social justice simultaneously is almost fundamentally wrong. You can definitely make social justice marketable though, which seems to be Starbucks’ most recent business model. The problem is that there will always be a decision between what is profitable and what is right. Starbucks’ hot cups aren’t recyclable, only one of their coffees is fair trade, and they only value consumers who contribute to a capitalist society. These are choices made by the company that don’t reflect an attitude of social responsibility, they just increase their margins. In fact, the pursuit of profit is almost always in conflict with doing social good.
On Tuesday, May 29th, Starbucks will close all of its corporate locations nationwide so that baristas, myself included, can undergo comprehensive racial bias training. The questions thousands ask in response is, “Is it enough?” To start, I think it’s good. Not because they’re going above and beyond, but because they’re finally doing what should be the bare minimum. Bias training should not only exist at Starbucks, but also in the classroom… and definitely at the police academy. When you think about it, two institutions failed Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson that day: Starbucks, and the Philadelphia police. While they should never have been called in the first place, they should have had the sense to realize their presence was unnecessary and to de-escalate the situation. We shouldn’t have to hold our baristas to a higher standard than those who are sworn to protect.
While it is a step in the right direction, of an endless corridor, something about Starbucks’ response feels disingenuous. While you could argue that in closing their stores for training they are choosing social responsibility over profit, you have to consider the kind of company Starbucks is. A considerable portion of their consumers are based in liberal mass media; therefore, a scandal of this magnitude is devastating to their business.
They aren’t closing their doors because they want to impact social change, they’re doing it because they don’t want to lose more money. That’s the problem with crediting a corporation for doing social good, because you can never be certain of their motives. No matter how woke they claim to be, maintaining the capitalist behemoth they have created will always take priority. In many ways, Starbucks in a product created for the bourgeoisie by the bourgeoisie.