Two black men come into a Starbucks and ask to use the
restroom. The manager tells them that
they must buy something first. They
refuse, and sit down at a table. The
manager calls the cops and has them arrested for trespassing. They are later released with no charges.
Cellphone video of the arrest goes viral. Human rights groups are livid. Charges of racism are weaponized by the
legacy media to target a company and its employees. As a result, the CEO of Starbucks apologizes
to the “victims” personally and closes 8,000 stores for “racial bias
training”.
Starbucks gets what it deserves for being so stridently politically
correct, but I don’t believe the Starbucks incident had anything to do with
racism.
I can see how these incidents happen, because they have
happened to me. I have been unfairly ignored, hassled and
insulted (in my perception) by clerks and store managers for no apparent
reason. Perhaps it was because I was
young and vulnerable or looked angry. If
I was black, I certainly would have thought it was due to racism.
Sometimes, we can escalate a situation beyond normal bounds
because we are angry or feel aggrieved.
Sometimes, we encounter people who are just jerks.
Once, I went to a very exclusive private country club
restaurant for lunch with a group from my office. The restaurant had recently
been opened to the public for lunch only. It was a special occasion, the birthday of one
of the women in the group.
We were young and not dressed elegantly. I wore a long sleeve polyester shirt and
corduroy bell bottoms (popular at the time).
My hair was bushy with long sideburns.
Most of the other patrons from the country club set were older and had
suits and ties.
We had trouble getting someone to wait on us. Sensing some hostility
toward us, I ordered a drink at the bar to calm my nerves (actually two). Finally, our order was taken, and two of the
women (including the birthday girl) ordered steaks, well done.
When the food arrived, both of the women announced that
their steaks were burnt, and they could not eat them. Being the “senior” person at the table, I took
charge and asked the waitress to replace the steaks. She took the steaks away, but then the manager
arrived at our table. He refused to
replace them due to their policy of not being responsible for well done steaks.
I refused to pay for the steaks that were taken away and not
replaced, and he threatened to call the police. I dared him to. The next thing
I knew, the front doors of this fancy, dark, quiet Miami Lakes Country Club
restaurant burst open, and cops poured in, their radios blaring.
We all stood up at once and started a shouting match. One of
the women threatened to punch the manager in the nose. The older, well-heeled patrons were
shocked. The cops dragged me outside and
into the back of a squad car. One of them looked through a paperback law book
to determine what to charge me with. He
finally decided I was “defrauding an innkeeper”.
Rather than go to jail, I relented and paid for the steaks
that were not served. I had only refused
to pay $4 for the two steaks. Right. All of this grief for $4. Must be racism.
The restaurant had a policy of not replacing well done
steaks that were burnt. Starbucks has a
policy of not allowing restroom use to non-patrons. Managers can be jerks about enforcing company
policies.
This happened in 1978. If it happened today, and we were
black, the Miami Lakes Country Club restaurant would probably be shut down, and
the manager would be unemployed, branded as a racist. The cops would be fired
for racism as well. Cellphone videos of
the incident would go viral, sparking outrage from human rights groups and
every liberal in Congress. The incident
would be national news for weeks, with CNN and MSNBC screaming for blood.
As it was, the manager was just a jerk, the cops were
ignorant rookies, and I was white and powerless to do anything about it. So
much for “white privilege”. To anyone
who accuses me of having that, I will tell them to GFY.
Andrew Thomas
