THE STARBUCKS ARREST: JUST A MICROCOSM OF THE RACISM IN AMERICA

ICHEOKU says Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson is just being clever by half in his pretentious display of indignation that two black men were arrested and marched out of one of his outlets in Philadelphia. How many other Starbucks outlets and other American business have black people been similarly marched out from and sometimes outrightly denied service or looked through simply because of the pigmentation of their skin. But here he is pretending that he just landed from out of space Mars to learn that racism is alive and well in America. 

What happened in Philadelphia is not just a one time unfortunate incident implicit bias incident; and there is nothing his apology will fix because racism is a continuing American underbelly and is system wide and country wide throughout the body fabric of the American society and Kevin Johnson knows this long before the two black men were put in handcuffs and humiliated out of his store in Philadelphia. So what did he do about it all this time, only to now shed crocodile tears because what was captured on video is not good for the corporate image of Starbucks and might also effect its bottom-line. He is apologizing and now promising to have the staff trained in "implicit bias and sensitivity" and you ask yourself how many blacks are top executives in Starbucks and how many blacks show up during Starbucks directors meetings if there is no racism in Starbucks preceding this incident? But the duo's arrest was captured on video and here comes a supposedly very "contrite" Chief Executive Officer pretending that he is being made aware of racism in America for the very first time. 

How many people of color are Kevin Johnson's friends? How many people of color live in his neighborhood and how many black children attend the same school which his children go to; and above all, how many black people are store managers, executives and in top level management positions in Starbucks? The thing that riles ICHEOKU most is the ever present sanctimonious fire-service approach of "addressing" race issues in America, which always follows each instant when a particular act of racism publicly breaks into the open and bubbles to the top. People react and involved corporate CEO's run around the place promising to "fix it", but only to return to the their default status when camera pans out and the incident is no longer cool to discuss or occupy the airwaves. It is all about corporate image and sooner than later, all the generated fury will blow off and it is deja vu the status-quo. But corporate image is at the stakes and Public Relations experts are are trying to stem the tide and here comes all the white washing and other temporary palliative measures being put in place. 

ICHEOKU says it is over fifty years since the passing of the Civil Rights Acts, yet blacks are paid less than their white counterparts in America, when they are lucky to be employed. Blacks still live in their own separate neighborhoods; their children still go to their own different schools; they still go to their own black churches; corporate America including Wall Street do not have a reflective population percentage number of black people within their enclaves; loan facilities for homes and cars are still not extended to black Americans on the same level as their white counterparts; police still disproportionately kill more blacks in America and for practically no reason other than to just remove some "nuisance" from their society and the list of painful experiences of being black in America go on ad infinitum. So is Kevin Johnson telling ICHEOKU or the world at large that he is oblivious of all these racial inequality and disparate treatment of people in America or was he just tagging along all this while in order not to disturb the groove until now? 

ICHEOKU is only taken aback by the pretentiousness and band-aid approach towards solving instances of race issue in America whenever one draws public attention; because after the very episode, things usually quickly revert back to the default mode until the next episode. Instead of seriously finding a way to indeed truly solve the issue of race in America, they simply place a band aid on issue by issue, sometimes make some token payment in compensation and few days later, it is back to business, the usual way of doing things. Even when the police kill unarmed innocent black man for instance, there is often no consequences as they just walk away Scot-free. As a result, other would be killers do not learn from the experiences of their past killers and they go on perpetrating their nefarious acts of singling out and killing blacks with impunity knowing fully well that nothing will happen to them because it was just another black man that was killed. ICHEOKU says if this is not racism, what else is? 

The only reason the Philadelphia arrest is making all these waves and headlines is that it was captured on video and people are reacting and expressing outrage. Starbucks is a Wall Street business that must reel in the cash in order to look good and they have to sell millions of cups of the hot liquid to do this. They also need a good corporate and community image to draw in customers who pony their money out for their overpriced hot cups. This is the principal underlying reason the fire brigade PR is trying desperately to quench the fire. The optics is not good and it might cause heavy loss of revenue for Starbuck, hence all these measures which are being hurriedly implemented. It will close 8,000 stores to do sensitivity training and you wonder why the drama of shutting down so many stores simultaneously when they could have achieved the same result by making  baristas watch sensitivity training video during their one hour lunch break and pay them for the hour. 

But no, it must be dramatized to appear that they in fact actually did something. How about opening coffee houses in black neighborhoods or employing more blacks or even giving back to the black community to help them send their children to colleges and universities on Starbucks' scholarships. Better still how about giving some Starbucks stocks and shares to the two fellas to really apologize to them and as them to please forgive. But Americans understand what is going on as the whole essence is the white man's effort to break the will of the black man to fight and survive, period. They carry it out everyday, every hour, every minute and every second both in jobs, housing, stores, streets and hospitals etc. When you refuse to give up, their police will either kill you or their judges will put in you in prison and often times throw away the key with some people dying in prison for offenses which they did not commit. They publicly humiliate you just to drum it into your ears that the Lord made a mistake by creating you black. 

Why did the police not ask the two black guys to just leave the store, after listening to their story, without the need to put them in handcuffs?  But no, they have to handcuff them to continue feeding the stereotype that black people are criminals and trouble makers; and telegraph to other blacks that we are ready for you and watching, so don't mess with us. Query, were the two black guys Caucasians or even Asians, would the police have arrested and put them in handcuffs? Were they the "right" color, would the Store manager have refused them the use of the bathroom or called the police to report them as being threatening or that they refused to leave the store. When did trespassing become an arrest-able offense without first asking the so called trespassers to quietly leave; following their refusal or recalcitrant, then an arrest might follow. But no, they had to arrest first and ask questions later and the ONLY reason they did it is the same reason such discriminatory practises have been going on in America for centuries and continuing till this day. SAD.