My children Candice and Eli were boarding a bus to come visit Karl and I when we lived in Phoenix (a few decades ago).
They were in their late teens (18 and 19). It was Christmas time. They were pulled off the bus in Texas, harassed by law enforcement and Police dogs…. their Christmas presents were unwrapped rather the paper viciously torn from the boxes in the middle of the bus depot, with mortified white passengers looking on and trying to help them.
The dogs were sniffing around them and the police ripped open their gifts. “We are checking for drugs”, the police said and one had a gun pointed in the direction of my children. When the dogs tried to move away, they were pulled back over and over again. My children were traumatized.
When I see the video of these men being arrested in Starbucks, I understand the arresting officers were called on scene. I do think that the Starbucks Manager should be placed on probation and demoted.
Many white customers shared that they’d been there for hours, not buying anything, using their computers and no one harassed them. Back to the arresting officers…. they have latitude, they have discretion…but yet they refused to come down on the side of these innocent black men even after their white friend said, they’d done nothing. These black men were held in custody for 9 hours in jail…9 HOURS! It makes me sick to hear some former black law enforcement talk about how this is a win because the cops were calm, the black men were calm….PLEASE STOP THE MADNESS! America needs to confront the racism that exists in this country and confront it! We also need to talk about black folks in power who are drinking the “nothing is wrong” kool aide. I am proud of the Starbucks CEO who came to Philadelphia to publicly apologize…. He didn’t do it just because he was concerned about a boycott, but again he did it because Starbucks has a history of honoring DEI and deliberately set in place policies that support racial justice. The Manager DOES needs to go on probation and be demoted in my opinion. She knew better… These acts of racism are trauma laden and not coincidental…my kids, kids everywhere, everyday, these black men and millions of other black and brown people. This must stop!