How long does it take to teach someone not to be racist?
A lot longer than it takes to finish a cup of coffee, for a start. A lifetime isn’t enough, in most cases. That’s why Starbucks’s decision to close 8,000 of its U.S. stores last Tuesday for a mandatory “implicit bias” training seemed hasty.
The training was in response to a public outcry in mid-April when an employee at one of Starbucks’s Philadelphia stores called the police on two Black men for sitting in in the café without purchasing anything. Both men were later released and dropped of the charges they were facing – trespassing and disturbance – by the district attorney who verified their innocence.
Starbucks immediately found itself in a PR nightmare. Starbucks’s chief executive officer, Kevin Johnson, later issued an apology to the two Black men and acknowledged that their company “practices and training led to a bad outcome.”
Johnson’s not wrong as mistakes happen at work all the time, but what his employer did goes far beyond improper practices and training. The incident reflects a larger problem of racism and prejudice happening to people of colour in white public spaces
In the past month since Starbucks’s highly publicized arrests, the presence of black people has been challenged in while barbecuing in a park, playing on a golf course, and napping in a common room at Yale University. The criminalization of Black and Brown people in America is becoming a much larger problem and people are too quick to label the Starbuck’s training as a victory in resolving centuries of prejudice.
In the training, workers participated in wide-ranging discussions about race and identity and watched videos about police brutality against Black people for several hours. A worker who participated in the training told Timethat the training focused less on inclusivity and more on the “white barista-young black male customer interaction.” Other employees felt that the training would not make a significant impact in how customers of colour are treated because it’s inconclusive to other systemic issues at play.
Starbucks is only focusing on individual behaviours rather than acknowledging that they operate within a power structure that allows for racism to manifest because their workforce is not diverse enough. A report by Slatenotes that racial minorities account for “40 percent of Starbucks’ overall work force and 18 percent of its executive team.” This means that their workforces are not integrated so that people of different racial groups are constantly interacting with each other and working as equals. The lack of diversity encourages bias against minorities and Starbucks should work on diversifying their staff rather than close their stores because studies have shown that training doesn’t always work.
According to a recent report from The Equity and Human Rights Commission found “mixed results” for sessions aimed at reducing bias. Another study found that these trainings rarely leave a significant impact on workers with them reverting back to their old habits in a day or two. Bad training may even provoke staff into feeling resentful because they take offence at being viewed as racist or sexist. These sentiments were shared by workers in Starbucks’s training.
Instead of demanding workers to watch videos and talk about their experiences with race, Starbucks needs to re-examine its internal and external policies to allow equal treatment for its workers and customers. The new policy that allows for customers to sit in the stores or use their washrooms is a good start, but Starbucks can also hire more people of colour in different management positions to create and sustain racial equity in all areas of their business.
Starbucks need to recognize that changing deeply held beliefs, perceptions, and even prejudices require time and willingness to learn from and about others.