All eyes were on Starbucks again on Tuesday as the corporation shut down 8,000 stores to conduct anti-bias training following the public uproar over a white Starbucks manager calling the police on two black men who were waiting in a store in Philadelphia in April.
Starbucks billed Tuesday’s training as “one step” in addressing racial bias, and national reports have called the company’s move an “important start.” But for two Philadelphia Starbucks employees I talked to, the training merely “targeted” people of color and exacerbated racial tensions.
I spoke with the baristas separately on Tuesday evening after they attended the training at a Sheraton hotel with employees from about four districts in the region. Between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., they had sat with fellow employees listening to a few presentations, watching a number of videos, journaling, and occasionally talking to colleagues and session leaders in small self-guided groups. (Starbucks has made all materials from the training session available here.)
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“It felt like we were off task the entire time because we didn’t reflect on the situation itself,” said Tina, who has worked at Starbucks for a year. “The training materials focused a lot on police brutality, which had nothing to do with the incident that happened.”
AAN Staff
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