If I were arrested each time I scurried into a restaurant to use its bathroom without first or ever ordering any food or drink, my rap sheet would be longer than my arm. Both arms. Throw in both legs, as well.
What many considered an oasis of progressive tolerance, Starbucks has now been transformed into a symbol of the bigotry, intolerance and double standard white America harbors toward people of color. All because an employee and his manager brought their prejudices to work and let them surface by calling the Philadelphia police to arrest two well-behaved black men, one of whom wanted to use the bathroom as they waited for a meeting with a (white) man who had not yet arrived.
The Starbucks personnel claimed the black men were trespassing, though other patrons—white patrons—said asking to use the facilities without buying anything never provoked negative reactions, much less a call for police backup.
It is the type of racial profiling, overt discrimination, that has alarmingly increased over the last decade and been at least tacitly condoned by the current occupant of the Oval Office.
Starbucks has been shamed and apoplectic. Apologetic. It has reportedly reassigned the manager, though many have called for his dismissal.
I wouldn’t fire the manager or the employee who called the police. Rather, as a condition of their continued employment by Starbucks, I would require each of them to perform 200 hours of community service in disadvantaged neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Perhaps that would educate them to the reality that people of all different colors are decent and deserve equal treatment.
Whom Do You Trust? Comey vs. Trump. A career straight shooter vs. a habitual stretcher of the truth (okay, a dyed-in-the-wool liar).
Barring the existence of a tape recording of their conversations, the choice of truth teller very much lies with your prejudices. You can probably guess mine.
What perplexes many observers is the stedfast support Trump receives from evangelicals of all denominations despite his less than pristine character, a character that former FBI director James B. Comey asserted Sunday night on ABC News makes Trump “morally unfit” to be president and that he doesn’t represent the values of America.
Perhaps the linked article by David Von Drehle, a columnist for The Washington Post, will help you understand them better, why despite all his apparent flaws, Trump retains the allegiance of those in the nation’s heartland : https://wapo.st/2qfp0X0?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.2ff8098e5218
