Starbucks just the latest retailer accused of racial profiling

The store is different, but the complaints have a familiar ring: Black shoppers recount instances in which managers call security – or the police – in situations white shoppers say they rarely face.

On Sunday, demonstrators gathered outside a Starbucks in Philadelphia to protest the store management’s decision to call the police on two black men after a video of the arrest went viral, sparking a lengthy apology from Starbucks’ CEO Kevin Johnson, who offered to meet with community leaders.

The company “stands firmly against discrimination or racial profiling,” he said in the statement, in which he acknowledged that the company’s training and policies led to a “bad outcome.”

The apology came amid a growing firestorm, including calls for a boycott, after police at a Starbucks in the Center City district of downtown Philadelphia handcuffed and arrested the men after store employees said they were trespassing.

The men, according to police, had asked to use the restroom. But employees, citing store policy that only paying customers can use the restrooms, refused. They sat back down to wait and wouldn’t leave when asked by employees to do so, police said.

A video posted on Twitter shows police talking to the men, who were sitting in the Starbucks, the arrival of a white man who was meeting them there, and their being handcuffed and led out of the store.

The Philadelphia Inquirer identified the white man as real estate developer Andrew Yaffe.

“What did they get called for? Because there were two black guys sitting here to meet me,” Yaffe says on the video. “What did they do? What did they do?”

The video drew millions of views online, and the #BoycottStarbucks hashtag trended on Twitter.