https://pjmedia.com/news-and-p...onstrate-contrition/

Chairman on Starbucks Incident: 'We Did Everything We Could to Demonstrate Contrition'

BY NICHOLAS BALLASY MAY 11, 2018


WASHINGTON – Starbucks Executive Chairman Howard Schultz said the world is “questioning the moral leadership of America” and he urged the public to reject nationalism.

“We are living at a very unusual time and I don't think it would be an overstatement, especially this week, to say that the country is facing a real crucible,” Schultz said after accepting the Atlantic Council’s Distinguished Business Leadership Award on Thursday evening. “And I think you can broaden that and kind of ask the rhetorical question about the crucible of leadership.”

Schultz recalled visiting Auschwitz for the first time and finding a stone in the sand, which he laid on the podium.

“I've had that rock on my desk to constantly remind me not only to never forget, but in an age of uncertainty, especially the last couple of years, to remind me of the best of America. Now, it's been 75 years since the end of World War II and I think many today, unfortunately, at home and many around the world – and I travel a great deal – are questioning the moral leadership of America, and the ideals of America and what this rock not once, but still, represents,” Schultz said. “I say straight away that my company and what we do at Starbucks is not a proxy for the country or leading the country, but our values and guiding principles, I think, are steeped in American values.”

Schultz named some of the benefits Starbucks employees have received over the years.

“The aspiration was to build a different kind of company, a company that would achieve the balance between profit and conscience, a company that would demonstrate that not every decision is an economic one, a company that would demonstrate success is best when it's shared,” he said.

“And do things that were unheard of – ownership for every employee, comprehensive health insurance over 20 years before the Affordable Care Act, free college tuition for every employee. All of these things steeped not in marketing or PR but steeped in the understanding that we have to create opportunity for everyone,” he added. Schultz argued that private businesses like Starbucks must address social issues in America and “pick up the slack” of the “political class” in order to solve problems. “Now, we are living at a time both at home and abroad where the challenges are significant and acute. We have significant systemic issues – social issues in the country – and as a result of that, I feel so strongly that today businesses and business leaders must understand that we are living at a time where the rules of engagement for a public company are very, very different than they've ever been, because we must pick up the slack and, unfortunately, the lack of responsibility of the political class,” he said.

“There are a lot of important people in this room who have a great deal of influence on the future of our country and the future of our world. In my view, as a private citizen who travels the world, perhaps more than many of you here, there are real questions and real concerns and real doubts about the strength and conviction and moral courage of the United States of America. The Atlantic Council stands for relationship-building, trust and confidence among our allies. This is not a time for isolationism, for nationalism,” he added.

Schultz continued, “This is a time, as we face this crucible, for cooperation. This is not a time to build walls. This is a time to build bridges. Over the course of the last year, I wanted to do a number of things that would give me exposure to the human condition here at home and abroad. I wanted to understand the opioid crisis. I wanted to go to the southern border in Texas and understand the immigration issues. I wanted to go to Gettysburg and I wanted to go to Normandy.”

Some have speculated that Schultz might run for president in 2020. Schultz has said he has no plans to enter politics.

“I’m going to stay with citizenship – that’s what I’m committed to and I think that’s where I belong at this time,” he said on Thursday.

In the afternoon, Schultz participated in a discussion on “The Role and Responsibility of a Global Company,” in which he addressed the controversy surrounding the arrest of two African-American men inside of a Starbucks store in Philadelphia.

“Our stores are not public bathrooms, but they’re used as such. In this particular case, two African-American gentlemen came in the store – like millions of other people – to sit down and have a meeting and one of them asked to go to the bathroom and we have kind of a loose policy around you should be able to use the bathroom if you buy something and it’s really the judgment of the manager. And in this particular case, she asked the gentleman: Are you a customer? And he said, no. And they go into a conversation and one thing led to another, and she made a terrible decision to call the police,” Schultz recalled.

“The police came, en masse, and in 10 seconds handcuffed the guys – thank God they didn’t resist – and they were arrested and we were absolutely wrong in every way. The policy and the decision she made – but it’s the company that’s responsible. And when this happened, we flew en masse to Philadelphia. We stayed there for days and we did everything we could to demonstrate contrition, to immediately go on social media and national TV and apologize and have conversations with local clergy and all of the people we needed to talk to in Philadelphia for them to understand the level of compassion and empathy we had for the situation,” he added.

Schultz emphasized the importance of the racial bias training that Starbucks employees will undergo on May 29, explaining that “every store in the country” is going to close in the afternoon on that day.

“Since the Philadelphia incident, we have been working diligently inside the company and with outside resources to create a curriculum of training, because I think it’s fair to say that most people have some level of unconscious bias based on our own life experience. And so there’s going to be a lot of education about how we all grew up and how we see the world and how we can be better,” he said.

“And that curriculum and that education is the beginning, not the end, of an entire transformation of our training at Starbucks, which, in addition to everything we do operationally, will stay inside the company. We’re also going to open-source it and make it available to every other company,” he added.

Schultz reflected on Starbucks’ attempted “Race Together” campaign that ended in 2015 after backlash on social media. According to Schultz, the idea came out of a companywide meeting he had organized.

“I think with horror and shame what we witnessed as Americans in watching Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner and others be murdered, and there was great unrest in the country. And this is not in any way to criticize or in any way pit one group versus another, especially those people who wear the uniform of policemen every day,” he said.

“But the truth of the matter is that racial divide was really, I think, on the rise during that time two-and-a-half years ago, and certainly today we have a significant divide in the country as well. We looked at that and I decided that we should have a companywide meeting, unscripted just like this, where we would just talk about race, racial divide, unconscious bias, and give everyone in our company a companywide forum to share,” he added.

When asked why they eventually decided to pull the plug on the campaign, Schultz replied, “We did not shut it down because we thought we were wrong to do it. We shut it down because we thought our people were going to be in danger and that’s a whole other issue with regard to, I think, the systemic issue and the divide in the country.”

Schultz declined to answer follow-up questions from reporters after the event.

yeah, right

his coffee sucks

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:

his coffee sucks

Amen! I say we reject the overpriced watered down swill he sells. Fuck him!

Just another reason not to drink that nasty shit he calls coffee.

quote:

...and we have kind of a loose policy around you should be able to use the bathroom if you buy something and it’s really the judgment of the manager.

And, there's your problem Howard; do you or, do you not have a policy. Just go away, retire already.

quote:

comprehensive health insurance..., free college tuition for every employee

Free? It's all out of the pockets of those who buy your overpriced shit.

It would be nice if enough people said "Fuck them" and we saw Starbucks turn into another Kmart.
But yuppies (and those who wish they were) gotta have their cocaine drinks.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
“I think with horror and shame what we witnessed as Americans in watching Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner and others be murdered,...

If you hadn't discredited yourself, already, you sure did now.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
.. and there was great unrest in the country. ...
“But the truth of the matter is that racial divide was really, I think, on the rise during that time two-and-a-half years ago, ...

And just who was leading the country at that time, and had been for 6-1/2 years?

I've got a Starbuck's gift card sitting in front of me, that was a Veteran's Day gift from my ex-employer. I'll use it. When it's up, I'll likely never partake of Starbuck's product ever again. They're becoming everything I don't want for the country in which I live.

"Black Lives Matter activists, not content with Starbucks shutting down locations on May 29 to host an anti-bias training in response to an incident with police in Philadelphia, later pushed the company to drop the nation's most prominent Jewish defense group from that training. On Monday, Starbucks announced it would drop the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of America's most well-respected civil rights groups, from the training.

The ADL will still take an advisory role in Starbucks' long-term efforts to combat discrimination, but the group will not help develop the curriculum for Starbucks' mandatory anti-bias training, according to company spokeswoman Jamie Riley. This is peculiar, as the ADL has long taken a stand against police abuse, especially on racial issues.

Riley insisted that Starbucks was not caving to political pressure in dropping ADL from the curriculum. "We are architecting a multi-phase approach to addressing bias," she told POLITICO.
"
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/...i-semitism-to-blame/

Well, I thought about it, and decided instead to reject Starbucks and Howard Schultz

Schultz is off his rocker, and that's being kind. Here's his brilliant idea, because it's not fair the homeless have to stink up the bathrooms of public libraries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.8985d65a078a

Starbucks chairman opens up about company’s race failures — and says its bathrooms are now open to all

by Tracy Jan
May 10 at 6:35 PM

Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz said Thursday that the company will now open its bathrooms to everyone, regardless of whether a purchase has been made, following the arrest of two African American men who had asked to use the bathroom at one of its downtown Philadelphia coffee shops.

Schultz, speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington hours before he was slated to receive a business leadership award, said the company is changing its policy, after weeks of controversy, because it wants everyone — customer or not — to feel welcome at Starbucks.

“We don’t want to become a public bathroom, but we’re going to make the right decision a hundred percent of the time and give people the key,” Schultz said, “because we don’t want anyone at Starbucks to feel as if we are not giving access to you to the bathroom because you are less than.”

He said that Starbucks previously had a “loose policy” that only customers should be allowed to use the bathrooms but that it was up to each store manager’s discretion.

Schultz spoke candidly for nearly 20 minutes about the company’s failures over race, from its short-lived “Race Together” campaign in 2015 to last month’s arrest of two black men waiting for a business associate.

“We were absolutely wrong in every way, the policy and the decision [the store manager] made,” he said. “It’s the company that’s responsible.”

In the days after the Philadelphia arrests, a video surfaced of another incident in Torrance, Calif., posted in January, showing a black man claiming he was denied access to a bathroom while a white man was given the entry code. Neither man was a paying customer.

The coffee chain is slated to close more than 8,000 U.S. stores on the afternoon of May 29 for racial bias training, which Schultz characterized Thursday as the “largest training of its kind” on “one of the most systemic subjects and issues facing our country.”

In the weeks since the Philadelphia Starbucks incident, police have been called on African Americans for golfing too slowly, working out at a gym, shopping for prom, napping in a dorm, and renting an Airbnb — all because white people felt uncomfortable.

Schultz said the anti-bias training will mark the beginning of an “entire transformation” of how Starbucks employees are trained and will be part of a documentary by Stanley Nelson, who made the “Freedom Riders” documentary about the civil rights movement. The curriculum, which is being developed with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others, will be made available for use by other companies, Schultz said.

“I think it’s fair to say that most people have some level of unconscious bias based on our own life experience,” he said. “So there’s going to be a lot of education about how we all grew up, how we see the world and how we can be better.”

Schultz had flown to Philadelphia to personally apologize to Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson and said he and his team stayed for days to figure out the best response, including quickly demonstrating contrition on social media and national television.

He had been scheduled shortly afterwards to appear in Montgomery, Ala., at the opening of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and at a town hall at Morehouse College in Atlanta, but said he had been advised to cancel because of concerns he would not be treated well. He attended both events.

“It was tough,” Schultz said. “As a white person, a Caucasian person, I felt the pain and I felt the concern that young African Americans have, especially young African American men have, about the opportunities in America.”

Schultz said Starbucks, as a corporation, has a responsibility to address issues of race in the United States, given the national divisions over the killings of African Americans.

“We can all remember with horror and shame what we witnessed as Americans in watching Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner and others be murdered,” he said.

He said he was inspired by those events and subsequent protests to hold unscripted company-wide meetings throughout the country for employees to speak openly about “race, racial divide and unconscious bias” and share their experiences, concerns and personal pain, as well as their own biases, without fear of retribution.

“One young woman stood up and said: ‘My family were members of the KKK, and this is language I heard my whole life. I didn’t know it was wrong,’ ” Schultz said. “And we heard African Americans talk about the fact that they feel all the time that they are not being valued and the system, the playing field is not equal.”

From those conversations sprung the 2015 campaign in which baristas were instructed to scrawl the words “Race Together” on millions of tall-, grande- and venti-size drinks.

“We know this is the third rail. We know how difficult it is,” Schultz said. “But let’s have the moral courage to try and elevate the conversation.”

He said his board spent 2½ hours discussing how risky — yet necessary — the campaign would be. With Starbucks in nearly every community in the United States, the impact could have been “incredible,” he said. “So we leaned into it.”

The company was unprepared for the backlash. He said within two hours, the initiative had been “hijacked” on social media by hate and by anonymous people who “stole the narrative.”

So he ended the campaign.

“We did not shut it down because we thought we were wrong to do it,” he said. “We shut it down because we thought our people were going to be in danger. And that’s a whole other issue with regard to the systemic issue and the divide in the country.”

I have tasted that starbuck's shit only once. On a flight from Germany to the USA. Remember asking the flight attendant to get me some water to replace that shit.

They have a shitty product, are led by idiot's, and overly impressed with their own bias and stupidity.

quote:

“We are living at a very unusual time and I don't think it would be an overstatement, especially this week, to say that the country is facing a real crucible,” Schultz said after accepting the Atlantic Council’s Distinguished Business Leadership Award on Thursday evening. “And I think you can broaden that and kind of ask the rhetorical question about the crucible of leadership.”Schultz recalled visiting Auschwitz for the first time and finding a stone in the sand, which he laid on the podium.“I've had that rock on my desk to constantly remind me not only to never forget, but in an age of uncertainty, especially the last couple of years, to remind me of the best of America. Now, it's been 75 years since the end of World War II and I think many today, unfortunately, at home and many around the world – and I travel a great deal – are questioning the moral leadership of America, and the ideals of America and what this rock not once, but still, represents,” Schultz said

He just called us Nazis. Am I wrong?

quote:

“In my view, as a private citizen who travels the world, perhaps more than many of you here, there are real questions and real concerns and real doubts about the strength and conviction and moral courage of the United States of America. The Atlantic Council stands for relationship-building, trust and confidence among our allies. This is not a time for isolationism, for nationalism,” he added

"In February 2009, James L. Jones, then-chairman of the Atlantic Council, stepped down in order to serve as President Obama's new National Security Advisor and was succeeded by Senator Chuck Hagel.[3] In addition, other Council members also left to serve the administration: Susan Rice as ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke as the Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, General Eric K. Shinseki as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and Anne-Marie Slaughter as Director of Policy Planning at the State Department. Four years later, Hagel stepped down to serve as US Secretary of Defense. Gen. Brent Scowcroft served as interim chairman of the organization's Board of Directors until January 2014, when former ambassador to China and governor of Utah Jon Huntsman, Jr.[4] was appointed." <--- Recognize a fewnames?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Council

Cool story bro

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmund:

“One young woman stood up and said: ‘My family were members of the KKK, and this is language I heard my whole life. I didn’t know it was wrong,’ ” Schultz said.

Self-involved idiot. What right did he have to remove that stone?

Did he scratch his initials in the gate too?

No the world is wondering if they can pee in your bathrooms...

I got about halfway through that bullshit and had to stop. My eyes were rolling so hard I nearly broke my neck.

I would love to see a Black Rifle Coffee shop on every corner opposite every Starbucks.☕

quote:

...“I think with horror and shame what we witnessed as Americans in watching Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner and others be murdered...

Er, un those two died while committing violent crimes.