Get Your Coffee Early, Starbucks Is Closing 8000 Stores This Afternoon So They Can Teach Their Employees How To Not Be Racist

Source –  Starbucks will attempt a dramatic move toward racial reconciliation Tuesday as it closes 8,000 stores across the nation for an afternoon of anti-bias training.

Up to 180,000 employees at Starbucks stores and at its headquarters will receive training from a “tool kit” that will “focus on understanding prejudice and the history of public accommodations in the United States.” Starbucks also said future training will address “all aspects of bias and experience.”

Stores will be closed for three hours starting at 1 p.m. or 2 p.m., across the U.S. 

The training follows an incident at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia in April in which a manager called police on two African-American men who were quietly waiting for a friend. Her complaint: They hadn’t bought anything. Staffers also denied to let one use a restroom. Police arrested the pair for trespassing, but they were later let go without charges and Starbucks and police apologized.

The sessions are scheduled to begin after the lunch rush, but the training is going to be costly, with some experts estimating the undertaking will cost more than $12 million in lost profit alone.

The trainings are closed to media. Starbucks is giving a media preview of the session in New York and a chance to talk to a few employees that it has selected. The company’s plan to shield the sessions from outsiders, including members of the media, isn’t unusual and may actually help the company achieve its goals. 

Good to see Michael Scott found a second career after leaving Dunder Mifflin. I can only imagine how uncomfortable those three hours of diversity training are going to be for the minimum wage employees of Starbucks. After the long weekend, no less. They’re going to lose twelve MILLION dollars teaching their employees a lesson that could’ve been seven words, “stop calling the police on black people.” Seriously, remember this:

Those dudes we’re waiting for their friends and ended up in handcuffs. I just love that this is the response to two of their employees acting like pieces of shit. Shutting down half of the minority staffed 13,000 stores for a lesson on diversity via corporate HR.

They even have a racial “tool kit” “focusing on understanding prejudice and the history of public accommodations in the United States.” Which, if anyone can get their hands on, should send my way immediately. That or just live Tweet the entire experience. I’d walk down the block to try and sit in to see if I can learn something, but chances are the lessons they’re attempting to teach were engrained in my brain in the fourth grade. Regardless, it was a missed opportunity on my part not getting a press pass. Media day would’ve been a riot.

The craziest part is that this comes a few weeks after Starbucks began allowing non customers to use its bathrooms. WHO CAN STAY AND WHO CANT?! Poor baristas are going to be so confused. What a world. #VivalaDunkin.

Editor’s Note:  Blog doesn’t really apply since nobody reading this is getting any coffee from Starbucks #VivaLaDunkin.