On a daily basis, people walk into coffee shops without buying anything.
Often, this happens when the person in question is waiting for a friend. They simply sit down and wait for the person they are meeting arrives until they buy their food and drink. Therefore, this scene didn’t seem uncommon to the patrons at a Philadelphia Starbucks on April 12.
Two young black men entered the Starbucks, and one of them used the bathroom. They were told that they could not use the restroom without first buying something. However, they were waiting for a friend, so they just sat down at a table while they waited.
Then, the white manager came out and told them that they had to leave if they weren’t going to buy something. Although they calmly explained the situation, the manager then called the police.
If this sounds extreme to you, you are not alone.
Many of the patrons inside of the Starbucks started talking to the police and complaining about how these young men were treated. After all, haven’t you seen this happen before? Most of the time, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. But the fact that the manager was white and the two young men were black points to something more sinister about how they were treated.
After the police took the men away, they took them to jail. However, some people who were at the Starbucks decided to film the event. They posted the video online, and it went viral almost instantly. People were outraged that this had happened to these two young men.
After the arrest, it was clear that these men had been wronged.
Both Starbucks management and the city of Philadelphia admitted that they had done the wrong thing, and the two men came to a settlement with a city. What did they ask for? Only $1 each. This was a symbolic settlement. What the men really wanted was a platform to talk about what had happened to them, and they got just that.
Their story went national, and they used it to call attention to the unfair ways in which racism affects black people in the United States. In fact, that area in Philadelphia has had significant problems with racism for years, and this wasn’t the first complaint to come out of the area. People from all over came together to protest how these men were treated.
In addition to their combined $2 settlement, the men also asked that $200,000 be donated from the city to high school students in the Philadelphia area who want to become entrepreneurs.
In this way, they made something positive out of an overwhelmingly negative experience. People from all over the country have gathered at Starbucks to show their support.
However, the men also received a settlement from Starbucks, as the company was under major pressure to respond to the incident. While most of the settlement remained undisclosed, they both got Starbucks to agree to pay for their educations. Both of these men want to do everything they can to benefit themselves, and they took advantage of their unfortunate situation to get the help that they deserved.
While what happened to these men is awful, it serves as a reminder that we have a long way to go as a country until we can reach the point where racism is no longer a problem.
The fact that they were arrested when they had done absolutely nothing wrong points to the fact that we have not yet completely overcome our country’s dark and racist past.
Watch more on the story in the video below.
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