Lately it’s become amusing to watch the left hold itself up to impossible, ridiculous standards. This time they are calling for a boycott of Starbucks over the arrest of two young black men who were hanging out in the coffee shop without ordering anything. They were reportedly waiting for a friend to show up for a meeting. When police asked them to leave, they refused, so the police arrested them. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, who is black, defended his officers, saying the pair were asked three times by police to leave.
The left claims that the two black men were racially profiled and that is the real reason they were arrested. However, one of the police officers who helped arrest the pair is black — but don’t expect to read that anywhere. An observer caught the arrest on camera and it soon went viral. The hashtag #BoycottStarbucks was started. Activists are calling for sit-ins at Starbucks without ordering anything in order to make a statement, daring employees to call the police on them.
At worst, there was an employee who decided to call the police because the two men were black. If so, that employee, who was the manager, should be disciplined. But to blame the entire chain on the actions of what may have been a rogue employee? The coffee shop where the incident took place is located in Philadelphia. What are its policies on loitering, and have employees called the police on whites loitering before? It may have been a regular practice that had nothing to do with race but crime in the area. Were the men acting suspiciously? Did the manager recognize them? Without knowing more details, it’s too soon to conclude it was the result of racism.
Starbucks is owned and managed by people on the left. The company goes out of its way to promote diversity. No one really believes Starbucks is a racist company. Tarnishing Starbucks’ reputation and business chainwide over the actions of one possible rogue employee is overkill and a punishment that doesn’t fit the offense. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson apologized to the two men and said the store manager never intended for them to be arrested.
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But this is becoming a common occurrence on the left, to turn on itself over impossible standards. It is currently doing the same thing with the #MeToo movement. Starbucks has 238,000 employees. To ensure that not even one of them ever does something wrong in regards to race, sex, etc. is unrealistic. Yet the left has now become convinced that anything other than these impossible standards is racist. One critic tweeted, “It may be 2018, but it seems we still need a strong civil rights movement now more than ever.” Another compared it to “the lunch counter battle of the 1960s all over again.” Racism has been eradicated more than ever in the U.S., but you’d never know it from the progressives trying to blow up any incident, no matter how small or mistaken.
In San Luis Obispo, activists made a scene last week out of a racial incident. Minority students boycotted Cal Poly’s annual Open House to protest a fraternity member who wore blackface. Twenty years ago, no one would have thought twice about someone painting their face black. Now, one rogue person who engages in the behavior results in tarnishing an entire institution. The university was not responsible for the student’s actions, nor would it have approved of them. An article about the incident drastically asked, “Is Cal Poly Safe for Minorities?” The fraternity member apologized, saying “[M]y ill-informed decision to paint my face black had nothing whatsoever to do with racism or discrimination.” Cal Poly has over 20,000 students. It cannot possibly police the actions of every student when it comes to political correctness.
The left claims that the right is full of fascists dictating how people should live their lives, but this is proof it’s the left that is taking their viewpoints to an oppressive level. When the left won’t even let itself operate normally, you know the situation has gotten out of control.
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