They improbably built an empire on housing deadbeats. For the price of a disgusting, unhealthy, overpriced COFFEE (make that a LATTE, please, with added cream, sugar and maybe some chocolate sprinkles), people can sit in there all day.
Or can they? Destroying the ambience of a Philadelphia Starbucks (apparently such a thing is possible), two black deadbeats walked in, sat down, didn't buy anything, AND wanted to use the bathroom.
For this, they were arrested. It's become the indignant "let's all get on the bullhorns, let's all get on social media" protest du jour. Warhol could've said, "Everything will be protested for a day or two."
Twitter was loaded with the trending topic, "BOYCOTT STARBUCKS!" Yes, ALL of them. The barrista who called 911 in Philadelphia is long gone, but the CEO is still apologizing and sobbing for the inexcusable 1-in-10-million incident.
The Twitter trend could've been "POLICE ARE RACIST," but, been there, done that. Let's not ask why the police would actually bother to handcuff a pair of deadbeats and haul them away. It may be that the blacks refused to leave on their own, as it really is everybody's God-given right to loiter and be a deadbeat in a Starbucks.
Barnes and Noble, which for years was known as THE place to be a deadbeat and use the bathroom, found itself struggling because nobody bought books there. They just read them like the store was a library, and stunk up the bathrooms, which they dutifully kept clean (unlike libraries). They ended up paying for more janitors, but selling fewer books. SO, they decided to be Starbucks and stick coffee bars in their stores. They expected deadbeats to at least buy some coffee. Nah, their books just got coffee stains on them.
Starbucks will survive The Great Outrage which, as a paradigm and trope of the zeitgeist, has an important underpinning.
It's the DIALOGUE (opened between talking heads on TV) over racism in America and how (gasp) it STILL goes on. As in: "Would that barrista have called the police if two WHITE WOMEN were sitting around, not buying anything, and one asked to use the restroom?"
Of course not. Unless they were fat. Or loud. Amy Schumer, be very careful and ORDER something.
Racial profiling. Well, yes. It's not likely that two white women are going to walk into a Starbucks and NOT buy anything. It's unlikely they would ask to use the bathroom and go in there and make a drug deal, or shoot up. Or piss all over the floor Or plant a bomb. Some other types of people...you watch them. Because you have a brain in your head and Mother Nature gave you emotions that include preservation and looking out for possible danger.
Starbucks will have a few more uncomfortable days before this blows over. Maybe, as we see in public libraries, we'll rejoice in having more deadbeats around in Starbucks, and they'll be a lot more comfortable about lounging around and taking up chairs and tables and being squatters. They'll certainly be squatters in the bathroom, and who knows, maybe Starbucks will kindly redesign the bathrooms to include showers, so these people (some are homeless, you know) won't have to wash their socks in the sink. Or their genitalia.
My simple solution to this is that I don't go to Starbucks. I don't NEED anyone to tell me to boycott a place that sells unhealthy liquids, or where unhealthy liquids may be all over the bathroom floor. Or where somebody might be cruising around just waiting to grab a laptop or a purse left "just for a moment" unguarded. Last time I was in a Starbucks was to be a deadbeat. I met a woman on Craigslist who sold me her printer, and she wanted to pick out a safe place for a meeting, which didn't involve her place or mine. The place wasn't crowded. Thankfully, I wasn't hassled for not buying anything (because I'm not black or Muslim...Black Muslims of course are carefully avoided and not hassled since there's still that Farrakhan-Malcolm element of danger to them).
Oh, being a white Liberal does mean that, eventually, I'll BUY something in a Starbucks, just as a courtesy for the few times I've waited in one of them to meet somebody, or used the bathroom (when there wasn't a hugely long line of white females). And when I do, I will proudly tell the barrista, "No cream, no milk..." and in a loud voice, "MAKE IT BLACK."
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