Culture

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A short timeline of Starbucks’ fraught history with race

The coffee store you can find everywhere has long dealt with accusations of racism and discrimination.

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Starbucks is having a round of bad press after a manager at one of their stores called the police on two black men who were waiting for a friend, and hadn’t purchased anything. The men were taken into custody and later released after lack of evidence, but not before video footage of their arrest went viral. On May 29, the company is closing over 8,000 of its U.S. stores to provide employees with racial bias training. While this effort may very well be a step in the right direction, it isn’t the company’s first reckoning with racism. — Ann-Derrick Gaillot