Life update: I’m a Starbucks Barista and have been for almost a year now. It’s been an interesting journey. Like most jobs there are days where I enjoy it more than others. Working for such a large corporation has its ups and downs. Honestly, I am extremely thankful for the lessons and experience I’ve gained working for Starbucks.
Tuesday Starbucks did something it never does. It shut down for half a day. Incase you aren’t aware, most stores don’t even close for Christmas... or any holiday... so it’s a pretty big deal. Unless you managed to avoid the news then you probably know why Starbucks closed down for a half day. Yesterday all partners in they US received racial bias training. This was in response to an incident that happened in Philadelphia earlier this year. Two black men entered a Starbucks and waited on a third man to arrive for a business meeting. One of the men asked to use the restroom and was told that it was for paying customers only. The two men had intentions to buy Starbucks but, as people often do, were waiting on their third company to arrive. The men had the police called on them and were arrested for trespassing. I will link some of the news stories below to give a timeline of the event and all that has happened since.
I want to make something clear before I go any further. I believe that what happened to these men is ridiculous, humiliating, and shameful. They were causing no problems they should not have been arrested, and everything about the situation was wrong on Starbucks’s end. When this first made news and Starbucks announced that it would be closing its doors for a day to educate its partners on racial bias I was impressed. I was excited to hear such an immediate response and one that wasn’t just an apology but actual action as well. I was hopefully optimistic about how the day would go and what Starbucks would put together. They worked with different prominent black community members, they had Former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. review the materials, and Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. gave advice on the curriculum that was developed. Famous artist Common was one of the ones brought in to talk in the videos, and documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson Jr. was an active part in making some of the videos that were shown during the training.
All of this is good. These are great things! And yet, I still feel like the whole thing missed the mark just a bit. I left the meeting frustrated with what Starbucks put together. Disappointed that they missed some important opportunities, and also feeling like some big issues were not addressed well.
Let me make something clear. I am white. (Like Casper the friendly ghost white) and I know that I will never understand what it is like to be a racial minority. My thoughts and opinions on the training are my own and do not reflect anyone’s experience but mine. I know that people with different backgrounds might have a different perspective on the training and I want to respect that. However, I also want to be honest in what I experienced and that is all this is.
I didn’t love the training. I actually got incredibly frustrated during it. The set up wasn’t the best in practicality, and I feel like Starbucks left some important people out of the discussion.
I know some people feel like the training wasn’t Starbucks job anyway. There are those that feel like it’s not an employers job to teach its employees to not be racist. People feel like Starbucks should be teaching its partners about coffee... not how to not be offensive. I disagree, but I do understand this argument. Should a company have to teach its employees to not be racist? No... but unfortunately that doesn’t mean it’s not needed. However this was issue number one. Trying to teach grown men and women to “not be racist” by having them to attend a four hour training session at their place of work probably isn’t the best way to accomplish the task. Maybe I’m just being pessimistic but I feel like the people that probably got the most from the training we’re probably pretty open people to begin with. I know that Starbucks didn’t expect to “change the world” with their training but I’m also not sure it was completely approached with believable expectations either.
The way the training was set up at our store, and I’m lead to believe it was supposed to be the same at all, was that we were split into groups given some written materials and an iPad. We each had small booklets to answer question in and write down thoughts in. We had some giant newspaper type papers to answer questions in as a group, which also had the transcriptions of the videos in it. And, we had to watch multiple videos on the iPad. So, for example, our group was 8 adults gathered around an iPad to watch videos while to other groups roughly the same size watched the same videos but slightly timed differently on either side. Can you picture it? Do you see where this is slightly problematic? About 20 minutes into it our group and another both had to move. We couldn’t pay attention and the feedback of the other iPads sounded similar to being at a sporting event when the announcer echos. So we moved. But then we still couldn’t hear. You couldn’t see super well. While the IPads were a generous and smart idea, in actuality they were difficult to use in a way that all could see and hear. So those are my main issues with the physical structure of the training.
Actual material wise is a little more difficult to talk about. I don’t want to offend anyone. I know that some people were really moved, inspired, and even encouraged by the training. I know many people spent a lot of time and effort on this training and also I realize I’m not a professional. The majority of the material in the training session was not new to me. I have a degree in Sociology. A lot of this information I’ve heard and discussed while in college, and I realize not everyone had this same type of informational experiences. Having this degree doesn’t make me a professional though. This is still just my opinion and my take on the whole experiences.
My largest issues with the training was that unless if I’m mistaken all the material was put together by Starbucks people meeting with leaders in the black community. So the majority of the people that put the material together were white or black. That’s it. White or black. No other POC leaders involved. The training was essentially and almost entirely focused on black and white racial biases. There were a couple of questions and exposes that could have been more generally applied but the majority of the material was still focused in this way. Starbucks had an incredible opportunity and I feel like they didn’t fully utilize it. Why weren’t leaders from all sorts of minority groups called together? Why was this not really acknowledged? I don’t think black people are the only ones who experience negative racial bias. I don’t think they are the only people group to feel excluded or be racially profiled but I feel like they were the only group the training focused on. Let me emphasize once again that the dynamics of the training made it hard to pay attention, view, and hear at all times so it is possible that I missed something big... but I don’t think I did.
The store I work at is primarily white partners. As in all but three employees of around 30 are white. One of the partners at our store is Mexican. I can’t speak for her, but I know she mentioned during the training that she didn’t feel represented. The questions were geared towards getting you to focus on the differences in a black persons experiences and a white persons. The documentary that showed the history of racism in America showed the history of racism toward blacks in America. This is important, but blacks people aren’t the only one to have experienced this. Where was the Asian representation? The Native, the Hispanic, the Middle Eastern? I didn’t see it. It wasn’t there.
Black lives matter. There are no buts or ands. Black lives matter. Black people deserve representation. They deserve equal rights. They deserve to not be treated like second class citizens, to be in fear of how people see or view them, to worry about the police. Black people do not deserve to be arrested for no reason. They deserve a good and just and equal life.
Racial bias training should cover all racial minorities. There are no buts or ands. We are not a country of two races. We are not a company that serves only black people or white people. We are a company that doesn’t want to discriminate or cause offense. The training was about how to make all feel welcomed. To make Starbucks a third place. I think that should apply to all races, all groups, all minorities... and so I’m frustrated that this didn’t feel covered.
My last issues with the training was that it didn’t truly acknowledge the faults in policy. The way the employee that called the police on the two black men in Philadelphia was able to “justify” their decision is because Starbucks had a policy that said if you are going to hang out in Starbucks you have to buy something. Starbucks changed the policy after the incident so that something similar never happens again... but the policy was there. It existed. There was a reason for it, but it was partially at fault.
One of the examples given for us to discuss in the training was from a partner that said he served a customer with a thick accent. He struggled to understand the customers order and had to ask him to repeat it several times. Then, as is Starbucks policy, he asked the man for his name. Starbucks wants us to know our customers by name to make them feel welcomed to give them a one on one experience and to make it easier to give out drinks. The partner struggled to understand the customers order and asking several times for him to repeat ended up just saying in a laughing manor “I’m just going to call you Bob.” We we’re supposed to discus what could have been done differently, and why this was wrong. It is racially insensitive. You don’t just get to give someone a name that is easy for you because theirs is a name you are not accustomed to. It’s not an appropriate response.
However, I feel like the issue is also because of policy. I’m going to be honest. When I have a customer that has a thick accent and I struggle to understand their order I don’t ask their name. I don’t do this because I don’t want to get to know them or to make their experiences special and personalized. I do this because after asking multiple customers for their name that had an accent I realized the frustration that occurred. I have had customers pull out their id’s because they know I will not understand them. I’ve had customers shake their head and walk away because they know it will take to many times of them repeating for me to understand and they don’t want to deal with it. I’ve had customers get embarrassed because I asked them how to spell their name and they don’t know the English letters. They can recognize their name but not tell you how to spell it. I’ve had customers that don’t understand what I’m asking them and get nervous because they don’t know what’s going on. Asking for their name does not improve their experience. It makes it worse. It’s a little policy. It’s one that is often ignored to be honest, but it does exist. I wish more of the training discussed how policy isn’t perfect, that they taught their employees to use discretion, to ask for back up or advise when they are unsure about a situation.
Another example was given of a woman who approached a man and told him pan handling was not allowed on the property. It was a man and he was asking a woman for money. They didn’t look like they were together and his description was given to show how the partner was judging him based off of his looks. When she made this comment to him the women he was requesting money from responded “that’s my husband.” We all laughed at this example because of the awkwardness the partner must have felt. They were probably embarrassed and didn’t know what to do after. The example was trying to show their bias, but I took issue with the example because the partner was doing what policy states. Pan handling isn’t allowed on property. This is done for the comfort of our customers and their safety. The partner observed a situation incorrectly but the partner also responded in the appropriate manor to what they believed was going on. Yes they shouldn’t judge, but also if the man was panhandling and the partner saw and did nothing they could have gotten in trouble. Policies like that situation I tell someone higher up about. We have an issue with smokers outside our store even though we have numerous signs and it’s against the law to smoke on our property. I never tell a customer to stop smoking. I tell a shift lead, or the manager and let them handle the situation... but the policy still exists. I wish that part of the training had dealt with policy issues and Starbucks acknowledging faults that exist in policy.
Overall I’m glad I got to participate in the training. I’m glad that Starbucks took the initiative to respond the way they did... but like most new things it wasn’t perfect. It could be improved. It could have been done better. The intentions were right and just and well intended... but we have to stop waiting for serious issues to occur to respond. We have to take initiative. We have to take action. We need to not have to teach grown adults to not be racist or offensive by teaching children this their whole lives.
I want to emphasize one last time that all the above is just my opinion and my experience. Yes I am a partner, but this doesn’t reflect the views and feelings of all partners. It doesn’t even reflect the experiences of everyone in my store. I also acknowledge that I don’t know what it’s like to be a black person viewing this training. I don’t know what it’s like to be on the other side of racism and then to finally have your experience represented in this training... I just wish other POC and minority experiences were represented as well.
Below I’ve included a variety of links covering different parts of this story. I tried to include a variety of news outlets and aspects of the story.
