Forgot to add: one detail that hasn’t come out through the media treatment of this is that the policy to boot people who don’t buy anything was apparently just imposed three months ago. This detail came from a student of mine who works at a different Starbucks in Philly but knows, and has worked for the manager in question. This student (a black male, incidentally) said a) the manager is definitely not racist (and in his opinion she just made an embarrassing mistake and he feels bad for her) and b) that everyone working at Starbucks knew it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. So, on one hand, maybe these two guys pushed the situation on purpose to test the policy and then make a scene. Or maybe it was that they had sat in Starbucks before, and even used the bathroom, without paying in the past. There are a lot of maybes, as you point out as well. My gut tells me these two men pushed the scenario a bit, but again, sometimes that is what we do in conflict to draw attention to a bigger pattern of disrespect. Personally, no matter what the truth of this one situation is, I’m glad it helped raised awareness. The bias that people of color experience is just such a drain on everyone effected by it, so Starbucks being forced into addressing is ultimately a positive thing, in my opinion.
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