Posted on 05/29/2018 10:56:02 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Race Forward president Glenn Harris on why Starbucks’ mandatory anti-bias training is a good start, but far from a cure for what ails America.
Today (May 29), Starbucks is closing more than 8,000 stores for an afternoon while nearly 175,000 employees undergo training meant to address demonstrated racial bias. But what follows the training is even more important.
The arrest of Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson for simply existing as Black men at one of the coffee retailer’s Philadelphia locations last month is far from an isolated incident. Rather, the display of racism that drove Starbucks to respond is emblematic of the prejudice that people of color in this country face on every day.
Whether hosting a family cookout, shopping for a prom outfit, or sleeping in a student common area, the criminalization of Black and Brown people is a daily reality that can often lead to tragic results. This reality is bigger than Starbucks. It’s a national crisis. And all of us, including Starbucks, have a role to play in addressing it.
However it’s important to recognize that addressing racial bias can’t happen overnight. This work isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. And like a marathon, it requires commitment, time and investment. But the return is worth it—creating a more fair and unbiased workplace is beneficial for everyone.
It’s essential that implicit bias trainings aren’t touted as a golden cure for a society that is structured to drive inequitable outcomes and experiences for people of color. Implicit bias training is important, but it doesn’t result in systemic change. At best, bias trainings are a stepping stone to understanding how systems negatively impact people of color. At worst, they perpetuate the misunderstanding that addressing implicit racial bias lands solely on the shoulders of individuals.
Focusing on individual behavior is an important step, but is insufficient if what we want is to truly transform the status quo. Fixing a crack in the floor is futile if the house was built on an uneven foundation—we must fix both. When it comes to race, it’s not just about biased individuals; it’s about biased systems. Our workplaces are part of that system, and systemic problems require systemic solutions.
Systemic solutions require companies like Starbucks to examine the full breadth and depth of the negative outcomes experienced by both their customers and employees of color. For example, Race Forward knows from working with the restaurant industry that there are generally more people of color in the back-of-house—working as dishwashers, prep cooks and in other low-paying roles—while White staff are more likely to be in the front, earning higher wages as servers, bartenders and hosts. We also know that this racial segregation didn’t just happen on its own. There is a system that continually drives this reality, and it wasn’t created by any one individual. As a result, the restaurants we work with are figuring out how to address systemic inequity by examining their hiring and promotional policies and practices.
Starbucks closing its stores for racial bias training is a moment that doesn’t come often, but it also can’t be a singular moment. Tackling implicit bias is a critical step for any institution working to combat racism. But no single intervention is ever enough in a company this big, and dismantling racism requires more than one afternoon of training. Starbucks must also explore and address how racism plays out across the company, whether intentional or not. It’s about transforming the company’s workplace culture and examining the full scope of its internal and external policies—from the customer experience, to who gets promoted, to the demographics of the executive leadership.
Transforming the culture of any institution is complex and rigorous work, and we should all be interested in how companies of Starbucks’ scale address racism. The good news is that there is a growing movement of institutions—from government agencies to charitable foundations to nonprofit organizations—that are committed over the long term to advancing solutions that combat racism. Blossoming from these efforts is an expanding body of effective strategies to create and sustain racial equity. Starbucks has the opportunity to join this movement and lead other companies of its size in embracing their responsibility to address racism in this country. Here’s hoping company leadership embraces it.
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Glenn Harris has more than 25 years of experience training organizations both large and small on advancing racial equity. He is president of the new Race Forward, a national nonprofit that transforms policy, institutions and culture to advance racial justice and publishes Colorlines. Follow Glenn on Twitter.
What kind of bias training is it when the company excused is non-white employees from attending? Only whites can be racist?
Now you’re getting it!
Yes, Starbucks anti-bias training is ipso facto racist. Mandatory attendance is based upon race.
From all my visits to Starbucks....I’d say the vast number of employees are minority types, and college students (probably making up 70-percent of the work-force). If you had some diversity training which only 50-percent of your work-force had to attend...everyone will take it as a joke. At the Pentagon Starbucks, it was a 90-percent make-up of women, when I was there in 2011/2012.
Starbucks Shelters will be open 24/7. It doesnt want to kick out the homeless at the end of the day.
Where are they going to put the cots?
It is a heavy handed management tool to appease their new potential subject-to-regulatory-approval business partner. John Calvin never met a management tool he didn’t like—aka Nestle. Send that 7 Billion on a pallet please.
What percentage of Starbuck’s customers are Black?
people KNOW what they know....they know what situations are dangerous, when people can be dangerous..
They weren’t arrested for existing as black people, but for trespassing in breach of a reasonable policy. Sheesh! Ridiculous idiots. Except that it’s all racist, leftist agitprop identity politics.
29 May: Axios: A preview of Starbucks’ anti-bias training
by Stef W. Kight
What it looks like: Starbucks employees will be given a history of civil rights, will view a documentary and will “move into a real and honest exploration of bias” in small groups, according to a video preview of the training. This curriculum was developed after Starbucks reached out to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Perception Institute and other social advocacy groups...
https://www.axios.com/starbucks-closing-stores-for-anti-bias-training-d408831d-6ea6-49e0-90fd-323459bdfda1.html
Perception Institute receives funding from Soros’s Open Society, among others:
Perception Institute: Supporters
Many thanks to our generous supporters, including:
California Endowment
California Wellness Foundation
Ford Foundation
Linked Fate Fund for Justice
Open Society Foundation
The Nathan Cummings Foundation
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
https://perception.org/about-us/team/
Back in the real world, the majority of racism is actually directed at wytpepo. It was even a theme in the latest Marvel movie. But I guess not ordering anything while occupying tables in a restaurant and then trying to make a federal case out of it is more newsworthy than the hundreds of kids bullied every day in and out of school, or the polar bear hunts that persist across the country (and in other countries), some under the guise of antifa. Whatever. Stay in your bubble, Starbucks.
So basically anti-bias is anti-white.
I can only hope enough people get sick of this, it’s approaching a new McCarthyism. I’m not sure if the best strategy is when you are subject to this kind of training... To protest or go along quietly and bide your time u til the tipping point arrives.
Some employee should sue Starbuck$ for being racist against them by claiming because of their skin color they are racist.
All this BS. That’s why I prefer to get a cup of coffee at the local greasy spoon. No Diversity Training, no politics. Just a nice cup o’ Joe...
That’s exactly what they are saying bro. Needless to say, I think most of this is BS. My brown skinned minority wife, thinks so too. 😁👍🇵🇭
Yes, because they are far more likely to be raised in homes without fathers. But if you admitted that is a large part of the reason, you couldn't blame racism and you wouldn't be able to make a living as a diversity huckster.
It takes some education and social skills to be a server. One of my favorites restaurants has one rude black server. Acts like she’s doing you s favor. I started waiting longer if necessary to avoid her section. Chip on her shoulder attitude often ruined our meal.
Coffee collectivists pre-occupied with race.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GkwIRbLw8
Barbarian baristas ALERT!
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