There was an incident a few days ago about two black men who got arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia, PA.
Why does it matter that they're black? Well, we'll get into that.
Here's video of the two men being arrested:
Now, when I first heard about this incident, the first thing I saw was this video.
Of course, I was upset by it. Within the isolated parameters of this video, it looks like an abuse of authority -- big time. And that's something I absolutely despise.
Protests
As you can see in this video, protestors were activated and began doing what they do: manufacture outrage to get attention.
Even though I hate police abuse, I also hate manufactured outrage.
This sort of manufactured outrage is designed to lead cultural narratives through a news cycle to lay seeds of manipulation in the minds of the common man.
In this case, the narrative is intended to make people feel like we're still under Jim Crow, and two men were targeted and arrested simply because they are black.
I'll get into what actually happened at that Starbucks on that day, but first I'd like to ask: why would a narrative want people to feel guilty?
Well...
Guilt is a powerful tool to leverage
A Twitter user called Hotep Jesus made this tweet where he goes into a Starbucks and requests his free "Starbucks reparations" coffee.
SPOILER: he gets the coffee.
And, in the same vain as Hotep Jesus up there, not to let the opportunity to troll go to waste:
Six days after two African American men were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks, an Internet hoax is falsely suggesting the company has issued a coupon that entitles African Americans to free coffee.
...
The coupons, which are circulating on social media, say the holder is entitled to one free drink “Limited to persons of African American heritage and/or identity.” Many use the phrase, “The best dialogue starts over a cup of coffee, and we’d like to buy you one.”
Fake coupons are popping up promising free Starbucks coffee for African Americans
Here's Hotep Jesus on Fox News explaining why he did what he did:
As I was looking for these videos, I saw this clip of him on InfoWars, going into further detail:
Hotep Jesus has a book on marketing, so I'm pretty convinced that this is all a lesson for his audience about the efficacy of his techniques. However, he is bringing up an interesting point about how manufactured outrage is used to manipulate culture for political reasons.
So what actually happened?
Information about how things actually went down at Starbucks is surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) not forthcoming.
Here is Commissioner Richard Ross of the Philadelphia Police Department making a statement about the incedent:
According to employees, they had seen these two males come in, they sat down, and after being seated, they decided that they needed to use the restroom. Starbucks says that according to their company policy, they do not allow non-paying members of the public to come in and use the restroom. They then asked these two males to leave. These two males refuse to leave. … When the police were summoned to the scene they get there and they get this story. … They then approach the males, they ask the males to leave because they’re being asked to leave by Starbucks employees, in fact in an effort to quell the situation, the officers actually called for a supervisor. …Three different occasions, the officers asked the males politely to leave the location. … Instead, the males continued to refuse, as they had told the employees previously, and they told the officers that they were not leaving. When the call was initially made, the Starbucks employees had told the males that they were going to call police, and they said, "Go ahead call the police, we don’t care." So police get there and they’re confronted by the same kind of attitude, and they’re repeatedly told they’re not leaving.
Emphasis mine.
Here is the call to police, dispatches, and officer transmissions:
As we can see, the reason that the police were called in the first place is because the men were trying to use the bathroom without buying anything and were refusing to leave the premises.
There is good reason for bathroom policy
This is a very common policy in the US, especially in major metro areas.
I used to work in retail and food service. I can speak from personal experience that even in a smaller town where many people know each other and the bathrooms are generally open to the public, the most insane things would happen in there. People caught having sex, people smearing poop on the walls, people throwing poop covered paper all over the floors, people using drugs.
And it's not just my own personal experience. I'm sure that anyone who's worked in the service industry can share horror stories about the things that wend down in their bathrooms.
DALLAS (Reuters) - A dead man was found in the bathroom of a Greyhound bus at a Dallas maintenance facility on Wednesday, the company said.
Maintenance workers noticed the bathroom door was locked, wedged it open and discovered the body inside, according to spokeswoman Lanesha Gipson.
A Dead Body Was Found In The Bathroom Of A Greyhound Bus
People use Grayhound busses to take drugs in and die, and because of that there is now a policy that if someone is in the bathroom for too long a period of time, the driver will stop the bus and will open the bathroom to make sure people aren't killing themselves.
So, there's a good reason for these policies, especially in places where there might be disturbed people like in urban areas. And the manager at the Starbucks was calling the police because the men were trying to use the bathroom and refused to pay for anything, and then refused to leave after they were asked to.
They also refused to leave after the manager warned them about the police coming. And then refused to leave 3 times by the police after they arrived on the scene.
So that's about the size of the situation
As of the time of this writing, these men have received apologies from Starbucks CEO and the Philadelphia Police Commissioner for the way this incident was handled.
And I understand that: it could have been handled better.
However, the backlash of this story is huge, and it's pushing an incorrect narrative about this being a "sitting-while-black" situation: just two black men minding their own business when suddenly the racist store manager calls the racist cops to take them to racist jail. That, I do not buy.
But I also admit that I don't have all of the evidence. There must be store surveillance footage that would show us exactly what happened. But we are currently not privy to that footage, and I don't feel very confident that we ever will be.
What do you think?
What are your thoughts on this situation?
Where do you stand, if anywhere?
I'll see you in the comments!
Images from the fantastic https://pixabay.com/
