#49 Starbucks

I posted about Starbucks last week and ironically on that same day, a Starbucks store in Philadelphia made a grievous error in judgment. As 2 black men sat in the store waiting for their friends to arrive, the manager of the store asked the men to leave. The men refused. Management asked them to leave a total of three times before calling the police.

The friends arrived just in time to find the men in handcuffs. Police removed the handcuffs as the men's story was confirmed.

Film of the incident went viral.

Kevin Johnson, Starbucks CEO, issued an apology that stated the actions of the manager were not reflective of the company's values. All 8,000 of the company's stores will be closed for a day next month as the company gives racial-bias training to all its employees. The manager was fired.

"Not enough," "Too slow," people are saying as they boycott the stores.

I agree with voting with our pocketbooks. I've boycotted Chik-Fil-A for 6 years, and Cracker Barrel since the 1980's.

In the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, you couldn't turn on a TV or radio without being bombarded with news, speculation, and fear of this horrific disease. It was on covers of all the big magazines. Again and again.

Cracker Barrel took the initiative. They terminated all gay employees. Cooks, waiters, accountants. Didn't matter -- they fired them all.

Although I wasn't a big customer, I actively boycotted the restaurant and shared my feelings with friends and family.

Years later they got in trouble -- for ignoring African American patrons who dared sit at tables and expect to be served.

It didn't make much news at the time. I dug in.

In 2010, Chik-Fil-A gave over $8 million to its CEO's charitable foundation, oddly named Win-Shape. In 2012 Win-Shape refused to accept same-sex couples into its marriage retreats. The president and chief operating officer Dan Cathy stated on a radio show, "I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, "We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage." I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about."

No more waffle fries for me. Mr. Cathy has a right to his beliefs. I have a right not to support them.

So why am I concerned today that my friends are calling for boycotts of Starbucks?

It's a matter of origination.

In both the Cracker Barrel and Chik-Fil-A cases, decisions -- poor ones in my own opinion -- were made by owners and/or top management. They demonstrated that exclusion is their policy. They demonstrated values that are contrary to my beliefs.

The Starbucks case -- and I'm giving my own opinion here -- is different. A manager of an isolated Starbucks store, one of 8,000 in the US, made awful decisions. Top management has apologized and has taken the blame. "My responsibility is to look not only at that individual but to look more broadly at the circumstances that set that up, to ensure that this never happens again," Dan Johnson, CEO, said on Good Morning America. They're doing everything they can to fix the issue.

Our little town has 2 local Starbucks stores and, as I wrote on 12.Apr, I frequent them both. I have friends who work there, some of whom I've met as a customer, and some who I knew before they went to work at Starbucks. They all happen to be African American. And they're happy there. They feel they are respected. Treated fairly. Rewarded for good work. 

So I'm not boycotting Starbucks. It's my belief that the Philadelphia manager acted on her own, and her actions did not reflect the values of the company. It's my belief that the company itself has done no harm, not acted irresponsibly.

I can't say the same for Cracker Barrel and Chik-Fil-A.