Starbucks chief apologizes via dual channels for racial incident [UPDATE]
After two black men were arrested for trespassing at a Philadelphia location as they waited for a friend, critics decried a double standard. The CEO vows, ‘This is not who we are going to be.’
Is it better to stop a PR crisis at its source—or through a companywide policy overhaul?
Starbucks is grappling with that question as it attempts to undo the damage caused by the recent arrests of two black men in Philadelphia.
The April 12 incident was caught on camera and uploaded to social media. The video has been viewed nearly 10 million times:
@Starbucks The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything. They were waiting for a friend to show up, who did as they were taken out in handcuffs for doing nothing. All the other white ppl are wondering why it’s never happened to us when we do the same thing. pic.twitter.com/0U4Pzs55Ci
— Melissa DePino (@missydepino) April 12, 2018
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