Starbucks closes stores for ‘humanity’ training
All shops shut few hours today for ‘learning session on race’
Canadian Starbucks coffee shops will be closed for several hours today, as staff take part in what the company is calling a “learning session on race, bias, and inclusion,” following the unprovoked arrest of two young Black men at a Philadelphia store.
“The reprehensible event in Philadelphia prompted us to reflect, and led to this day. But this isn’t just about the events of Philadelphia, or about race, or about social challenges in America. This is about humanity,” Starbucks Coffee Canada president Michael Conway wrote in an open letter that the company said would be sent to customers today.
The 1,100 Canadian stores will close at 3 p.m., according the letter, and the training materials will be available online.
The race-and-bias training is in response to public outcry and protests, after a video of the arrest of Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson, both 23, was made public. The company’s 8,000 U.S. stores closed for a few hours in late May, so the roughly 175,000 employees could undergo training.
Company executives have been uniformly describing the move as part of a journey, designed to ensure that going forward everybody feels welcome in Starbucks stores.
Robinson and Nelson had gone to the Starbucks in mid-April to discuss a real estate deal.
They asked to use the bathroom and were told it was for customers, so they sat down. Shortly after, a manager approached them and asked if they wanted to buy drinks and they declined, the New York Times reported, noting that 911 records showed that police were called about two minutes after the men entered the store. Starbucks settled with the two men for an undisclosed amount and city officials pledged to create a $200,000 (U.S.) program for young entrepreneurs.
On top of training, Starbucks has instructed staff in the U.S. to allow free access to washrooms, regardless of whether a purchase was made. In late May, a Starbucks communications manager told the CBC that the washroom policy in Canadian stores was being looked at as part of a 90-day review.
After the arrest, Andray Domise, a columnist at Maclean’s, tweeted that he was “absolutely done with watching while Black people are criminalized, arrested, shot at, and executed because white folks cannot police their imagination.”
In the Twitter thread, which had more than 50,000 “likes,” Domise added that there was “no earthly reason two men simply waiting on a friend at @Starbucks should have ended up in handcuffs.” In advance of the Monday closing, Domise said in an interview with the Star that “there really is no godly reason why you sit in a Starbucks and you have the police called on you.” Domise said Starbuck’s response of closing their stores “was a very public response, you might even say drastic.”
“Do I think it was effective? No.”
In response to Domise’s comments, Tim Gallant, a Starbucks Canada spokesperson, described the closing as a “first step in a long-term commitment” by the company to make sure all people are welcome.
“We know four hours of training won’t solve everything,” Gallant wrote in an email.
Domise said the reality is that Canada is “stuck in an infancy phase when it comes to addressing racism” and in some ways is worse than the United States. The country’s collective failure to acknowledge that racism is a serious and prevalent issue across Canada prevents people from having the conversations needed to make real progress, he said.