If there are two things I know, it’s Starbucks and the struggle to find public restrooms in a big city. You may have heard about the two men, as yet unidentified, who were arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks this week for what is being deemed “resistant loitering.” When the two men, who I shouldn’t have to tell you, are Black, walked into the Starbucks, they asked to use the bathroom. They were denied and told that they had to make a purchase.
When they told a barista that they were there for a business meeting and sat down anyway, someone determined the men were a threat and called the police. In a video of the arrest, shot by a patron who then put it online, you hear a woman say ‘I saw the whole thing and they didn’t do anything.’ In another video, the man who they were scheduled to meet with, indignantly questions the arresting officers, which on the tape looks to be about six or more, about the reason for the arrest.
Although it looks like the incident took place in the afternoon, the man were detained into the wee hours but released without any charges.
I know that particular Starbucks. When I was completing my B.A. in 2015, I used that location as my study hall. It had been renovated, along with several other Starbucks in Philadelphia to be meeting and hangout friendly, with two wide tables, and comfy leather chairs with outlets for freelancers, telecommuters and students to collaborate.
The 18th and Spruce location is smack dab in the middle of Rittenhouse Square, the poshest zip code in Center City, bordered by Rittenhouse Park and two of the city’s most high-end restaurants.
That, and the intersection of gentrifying and rapidly changing Philadelphia is what these two young brothers walked into that day. Downtown Center City is currently a perennial construction zone. Meds and eds, or medical and education facilities and the tech industry, are turning a city that has, since its inception, been a home for many solidly middle-class an affluent Black people, into a haven for hipsters and carpetbaggers escaping New York’s exorbitant housing costs.
While many African-Americans work, eat and sometimes play downtown, the vast majority of African-Americans in Philadelphia live in the gentrifying neighborhoods in the Northwest, West, South and North segments of the city. African-Americans do have a history of accomplishment in Philadelphia, but there is also a permanent underclass victimized by a decaying public school system, pockets of abject poverty and a persistently high rate of gun violence.
Rittenhouse Square remains a wealthy, white enclave. Just down the street, the patrons of Barclays Fine Dining or Parc and Rouge, pull up Maseratis and Bentleys to sit outside drinking fine wines and eating high-end foods on sunny days. Many are blissfully unaware of the problems Black men face in America, as those two demographics rarely interact with each other.
It’s not that it’s a rarity in Philadelphia to see two casually dressed brothers having a business meeting, it’s that if a conflict arises and they are not obsequious and obedient, there’s a chance that someone will find them suspicious. Consider that this incident took place just because the men asked to use a public restroom, a frustratingly challenging task in certain cities (Hi, NYC). Starbucks has been one of those places where bathrooms are clean, accessible and plentiful.
But in recent months, Starbucks locations have changed over to a bathroom code system that is sometimes only available with a purchase receipt. This is because, according to a Philadelphia-based employee familiar with company policy, a purchase to use the bathroom has long been a requirement. It just has not been enforced.
It’s a requirement meant to solve the persistent problem of homeless people and addicts who use public restrooms to wash and/or do drugs, an issue reflected in customer feedback to Starbucks. This employee has had to call police when an addict OD’ed in a Starbucks bathroom. The employee says that Starbucks acted on that feedback by changing the system of bathroom access, something that forces baristas to make snap decisions on who can and who can’t get an access code.
“I haven’t felt any discrimination [in the company],” the Starbucks employee, who is Black, says. “The goal is to capture people that need to pay. The way that it’s coming off is by being enforced by humans who are prone to stereotyping. People would come in, plug in to the free wifi, bring their own lunch and we wouldn’t say one thing to them. These guys are there for 10 minutes and you’re asking them to leave?”
Much online commenting has centered on the actions of the men involved. What did they do? What didn’t they do? There are still people, despite constant evidence to the contrary, who believe that Black people who do what white people do without a second thought every single day, must have done something to warrant the overreaction of white people. At best, this was an overzealous attempt to enforce an existing company policy that likely will always be difficult to do.
At worst, this is the very definition of racial profiling and a humiliating lesson in how it can impact Black men and women in the daily process of living their lives. Starbucks’ CEO, Kevin Johnson, wants to make an in-person apology to the men and you can bet that they will never have to pay for a Starbucks coffee again.
It will be interesting to see, though, if they seek the payday they so richly deserve for embarrassment and the hours of time that they lost. This incident shows that racial profiling is not uncommon, nor is it insignificant. These men were fortunate that their business partner believed them and was outraged enough to get them a lawyer.
They were fortunate that a patron recorded part of the encounter and witnessed the rest. They were fortunate that D.A.’s office declined to prosecute and that both Blacks and whites were outraged on social media, forcing a quick, though tepid, response from Starbucks and the Philadelphia police.
Philadelphia police chief Richard Ross, also Black, says that his officers acted appropriately. But his response, which may have intended to both support his officers and justify the arrest, came off as though he believed this type of stereotyping was based on the men’s behavior when we have yet to hear their side of the story.
Philly’s crime rate would suggest that spending time and energy on a loitering arrest, with multiple police offers dispatched to the scene, was something that would become at the very least, a PR nightmare. There is a horrific history of Black men being charged with loitering and other minor offenses that dates back to the Jim Crow era. Training and policy notwithstanding, this a situation where common sense should have prevailed.
You always have to consider – if the men in this situation were white – does an arrest happen? We know the answer. It’s unimaginable to think that while waiting on a business associate, to do the most universally human thing anyone can do, which is to use a restroom, would result in the arrest of two white men.
I don’t personally support a boycott, if only because at this point, we’d be down to nothing if we boycotted every microaggression, every biased company and situation. That Starbucks, a company that has made efforts to be inclusive in both brand message and hiring practices, is in the middle of his controversy shows just how persistent it is.
What we’d like to see more often, is what has happened here – that people of all backgrounds step up when they see an injustice and encourage others to do so as well. Maybe that means these incidents will become so rare they no longer even require social media outrage. But in this case, we hope the young men will get something out of this other than the embarrassment and frustration they must have experienced in just another day of Being Black in America.
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