On Thursday April 12th 2018 two men were removed
from a Starbucks after being asked repeatedly to leave by the store manager.
The men asked to use the restroom and were told it was for
paying customers only. They were asked to leave and when they refused the
manager called the police.
The police arrived and that is when the camera started to
roll.
Who Cares?
That video went viral across the Internet and made its way
onto mainstream media. Why would anyone care about two people getting being
asked to leave a business and when they refused to do so had the cops come and
remove them from the premises?
It is because these two men are black. Since they are black,
this must have something to do with racism. All other factors, elements or
facts are irrelevant and we do not need to wait for the whole story before we
act. This still went viral and it is worth looking at why.
A small group of people (activists, useful idiots, media)
are so desperate for a story about racism that they more than happy to be
willfully blind to alternative reasons as to why this happened.
They are okay with being willfully blind if it means they
can 1) feel good about themselves for ‘fighting racism’ (in the most lazy and
least risky way) 2) virtue signal about how not racist they are (me thinks the
lady doth protest too much) and 3) find meaning in destroying the lives of
others they judge as morally inferior (the employees are all racist so they
need to undergo unconscious bias training, the manager only asked them to leave
because he is racist not because they were trespassing and should be fired).
The truth is the demand for racists/racism far outstrips the
supply. When demand is significantly higher than supply that commodity becomes
more valuable. What is the value of racists/racism? It sells papers, it gets
clicks, and it gets people emotional.
Media Dust Up
The activists, mostly college educated to see racism and
sexism everywhere in everything (much like a fundamentalist religious person
will see their deity everywhere and in everything), act as outrage
manufacturers. They present their product, outrage, to the outrage merchants
(the mainstream media) in the hope that it will grow and become a household
name.
These outrage merchants can deliver their product directly
to your TV, computer or smart phone screen. They are not interested in truth,
rather they care about kicking your emotions so that you will pay attention to
them.
Currently outrage has never been more valuable, from the
outrage industry populated by activists and media elites, to the political
arena where outrage is being used as a club against political opponents.
Note: Yes there are justifiable reasons to be outraged but
this incident is not one of them. This outrage industry has a real world
impact.
Unconscious Bias
Training
The CEO of Starbucks Kevin Johnson said in an interview on
ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday
that he was going to have Starbucks employees undergo unconscious bias
training, as well as submit managers to additional training as when to call the
cops.
This seems like run of the mill training that most companies
undergo every year. I am sure most of us have gone through some sort of
training similar to this. So why does this matter?
First we have to understand the implications for this
training. The CEO of Starbucks is telling all of his 238,000 employees that
they are biased, and biased here means racist, and because of that bias they
must undergo training to eliminate it.
By the very act of participating you are admitting that you
are racist/biased. Most people will go to this training and nod along finding
it boring and will find they are not changed personally. But it only takes a
small minority to change the culture of a company.
With a few zealous employees driving the culture from the
bottom and informing to managers who will enforce company policy from the top,
those in the middle and on the bottom will either be forced out of a job (for
failure to conform) or will slide farther into the mindset put into place by
this training and its enforcement.
It was John Stuart Mill in his book On Liberty who said “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign.” (Page 13). Your employer does not have the right to
meddle about in your unconscious, they do not own you, it is your mind and you
have a basic human right to freedom of thought and privacy. It is an invasion
of privacy of the highest order.
By imposing this training Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson might
as well be telling his employees, ‘your thoughts are wrong, allow me to
training you in what to think, you don’t want to be a racist now do you?’
If you work at Starbucks I would suggest you talk to your
coworkers and organize. Submit a statement concerning the training you are
being forced to undergo. If management ignores that, I would suggest you
protest by whatever non-violent means that would be most effective for your
particular location. If that is also ignored I would walkout on the day of the
training and find another job somewhere else.
Your post breathes racism. To say the cry for rasicm outweighs actual racism shows your priviledge. Have you ever lived in a black community. Have you ever seen poverty? Do you even know what unjustice is.
ReplyDeleteThis whole blog is disgusting..
Also, edit your blog, there are tons of errors.
Thanks, for the reply, would you please give specific examples of where I was racist and what errors I made in editing?
DeleteYou’re right to critique the media for this story blowing up with so little information available (and honestly, this is not news worthy). However, you then go on to put blame for this on the people (or I guess a “small group of people,” among whom you lump activists, useful idiots, and the media), instead of the media alone. Let’s be honest though, you’re talking about American Democrats and leftists (two distinct groups, yet you lump them together).
ReplyDeleteYou frame your point of view on three points:
1. people can “feel good about themselves for ‘fighting racism’” - How terrible of them to try and stand up for other people.
2. virtue signal about how not racist they are – Sounds like something a liberal would say to a conservative when they say “but I have a friend who is…”, etc. Bravo on turning their argument against them so obviously.
3. “find meaning in destroying the lives of others…” – Because getting some time off of work to sit through boring powerpoint training is so destructive.
You then go on to say that colleges teach people to “see racism and sexism everywhere in everything.” I went to three different colleges in different states and never once encountered this. You’re trying to say that outrage is a commodity to the media, which you’re right about, but you’re saying that this is manufactured by the people. The media is profiting off this, and the people aren’t.
The CEO of Starbucks is not “telling all of his 238,000 employees that they are biased (racist),” he is just trying to mitigate profit loss. Let’s be clear, implicit bias exists, and it exists because people have had their unconscious meddled with in the first place. You may not like to hear this, but you are siding with racism by throwing such a fit about this. I’m not saying you’re racist, but you’re advocating for racist views to be okay because of “rights.”
To think that the average Starbucks employee can afford to walk away from a paycheck is ridiculous.
Yes activists are pushing the message, on social media and through protests. The media would not care as much if these things did not happen. As for the three points you mentioned;
Delete1) It is a problem to only be ‘fighting racism’ in order to simply feel good about yourself. They are not standing up for other people, they are trying to prove how not ‘racist’ they are when in fact they have never done or said anything racist.
2) It is not virtue signaling when you explain to someone who is calling you a racist and you explain that you have friends of various races. Though I would agree that is a weak argument but it is not as weak as someone claiming you are racist without proof (personally I would ask for proof of what I have done that is racist if someone accuses me of racism, the claim usually goes away after that.)
3) This one I feel like I might have been unclear. I was referring to the calls for firing the manager or anyone else seen as the ‘bad guy’ in these types of situations. The stigma will follow that person (who might have a family they are trying to support) regardless of the fact that she did nothing racist or wrong. That will prevent her from getting a job elsewhere and make it harder for her to become a productive member of society.
I believe colleges are teaching people to ‘see racism and sexism everywhere in everything.’ My wife went through a class that tried to teach her exactly that. Professors and students have also shared similar experiences, from Jordan Peterson to Bret Weinstein to Peter Boghossian. Mostly this sort of teaching comes from the humanity section of colleges (I got a degree in English and had to deal with some of this myself). So yes you might not have experienced it personally but it exists. I never said the people manufacture outrage, I said activists there is a big difference there.
The CEO of Starbucks is mitigate profit loss, you have the correct, but he is doing so by forcing his employees to undergo unconscious bias training.
I would like the proof that I am advocating for racist views to be okay because as far as I can tell I do not say that once. If someone does or says something racist I’ll be right there to oppose that, but I do not think the correct way to solve the problem is to silence the person (unless they have done something illegal, than due process should take its course).
I understand not being able to afford to walk away from a position. Sometimes though you need to make a hard choice and suffer a little now for a greater benefit later. I believe this would be one of those times.
You just said you dont think the correct way to solve a problem is to silence the person. This happens all the time to POC. Killing them, arresting, them and taking advantage of them.. Your privilege is showing by saying walk away, or you must not have kids or people who rely on you, or you think its just so simple to find something else, or you were put in a position to be able to save money. You must be a white male.
ReplyDeleteI fully understand the difficulty of finding something else. That is what makes it a hard choice, do you just go along with something you feel is wrong to keep a job you need or do what you think is right and give up a job you need. I have never been ‘put’ in any position, I had to work hard and sacrifice just like everyone else to earn what I have. I also fail to see what my gender or race has to do with anything.
Delete