A few years ago, after one of my classes at the University of Pennsylvania, I walked over to Body Cycle Studio on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. I arrived before the studio opened and figured I’d kill time at the nearby Starbucks.
While there, I asked to use the restroom but was told by an employee that lavatories were for customers only and that I couldn’t stay in the store if I did not buy anything. I left the coffee shop and waited outside the cycling studio until it opened.
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This happened shortly before the infamous incident at Starbucks in Philadelphia in which two black men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, were asked to leave for the same reason I was and were arrested when they refused. When it was requested that Nelson and Robinson stop loitering, it was because of racism; when I was asked to leave, it was because of Starbucks’s policy. Their incident caused national outrage, whereas I couldn’t pay anyone in the media to report about mine. It was yet another example of the toxic double standard on race that exists in the country.
Starbucks learned this the hard way. Now, the coffee company has 25.6 million reasons not to succumb to anti-white discrimination or the whims of the radical left-wing sociocultural mob in the future. Shannon Phillips, the former regional manager in charge of the location where the men were arrested, was awarded $25.6 million after a federal jury determined Phillips was fired from Starbucks because she was white.
This is significant for a variety of reasons.
First, it is another instance of the rampant anti-white discrimination infesting corporations nationwide — a frequent occurrence that rarely gets reported. White people suffer prejudice from radical left-wing executives solely because of their skin color, all to appease the core tenets of initiatives such as diversity, equity, and inclusion. Their way of being more inclusive is to exclude white people. As a result, people such as Shannon Phillips get discriminated against and lose their jobs, something that would never happen to non-white people in the 21st century, all under the guise of social justice.
Next, consider the reaction regarding Phillips’s judgment. When Nelson and Robinson were asked to leave Starbucks, refused, and were arrested by police, it was considered anything from racism to white supremacy. There was national outrage. Starbucks closed all of its locations for a national day of training.
Yet, when news came that Phillips experienced legitimate racism, prejudice, and discrimination, no such outrage ensued. There wasn’t any mention of systemic supremacy or privilege. And, Starbucks didn’t mandate a day of national training after being held accountable for discriminating against white people.
It’s an example of how our society is conditioned to express righteous indignation regarding claims of discrimination against minorities but relatively ignore it when such things happen to white people. This discrepancy needs to be acknowledged because it is creating division and poisoning the country.
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Corporations like Starbucks have decided racism and discrimination are perfectly acceptable, just so long as the recipient is white and not a racial minority. However, all forms of discrimination are wrong, and no one should suffer adverse consequences for anything solely because of skin color. Phillips was an actual victim of discrimination; Nelson and Robinson were victims of agenda-driven outrage from a horde of left-wing ideologues, predicated on ideological assumptions.
It’s not difficult to treat everyone, regardless of skin color, with decency, dignity, and respect. One would assume a large corporation would know these things, but the coffee giant obviously needs some training. Starbucks finally learned the lesson that anti-white discrimination doesn’t pay. Hopefully, other corporations were paying attention.