Starbucks: Guilty of Racial Profiling or Unfairly Targeted?

First of all, I boycott Starbucks all the time, not because of their treatment of customers but because I won't drink their overpriced burnt coffee and nothing else there is worth forking out the cash at the ridiculous prices they charge.

But, if you are actually a regular patron of Starbucks, should you get all boycotty over the Philly incident?

::sigh::I am so tired of the over-the-top reactions to local issues which blow-up into national race crises demanding us all to enter the race war so provoked by the media and certain political groups. And, before I go on to profile the Starbucks incident, let me state for the record that, yes, of course, any minority group suffers some level of discrimination and ostrasization because they simply are less integrated culturally into the larger group of people. As a minority in the area I live in, I can attest to some of those same problems myself (although, to a more recent degree and not over such an large expanse of time) and, sometimes one does indeed feel less welcome or left out or misunderstood. It is the way society works and one must deal with it and both groups, the majority and the minority, should do their best to make life good.  I love where I live, even though I am a minority (white in a heavily black county) and I take my status in stride and do my best to be a good citizen and not overreact to certain situations or attitudes.

One day I was walking around in a posh area of town, putting fliers in mailboxes in an attempt to find my lost cat. A black woman in a BMW pulled up next to me and asked what I was doing in the area! Why? Because I was a sloppily dressed white woman wandering about in a wealthy black part of town. I told her why and she took a flier and wished me good luck in finding my cat. I could have been all "you are a racist" about the incident but I figured she was concerned that I didn't look like a local resident and was only protecting her neighborhood from harm. Suppose she was right and I was casing the area for future burglaries and I jumped her and started punching her and she pulled a gun out and shot me,  hmmm, would we see a national news story here about racial profiling?

Anyway, to Starbucks. There are three possible versions of what happened here and we have to wait and see what the truth is. We need to find out who the three men involved actually were; the two black men sitting at the tables and the white man who claims to be the friend they were waiting for.

Version One: The most innocent/concerning version would be that two black actual real estate brokers were waiting for a third real estate broker in order to discuss business. They hadn't ordered because they were waiting for their party to arrive before their got their refreshments. While waiting, one needed to use the bathroom and when he attempted to do so, was stopped by the Starbucks' employee and told he could not due to the fact he was not a paying customer at that point. Returning to his seat, he continued to sit without purchasing any drink or snack and he and his friend were asked to leave if they were not going to buy anything. Maybe they said they were waiting for a friend or maybe they didn't, but Starbucks obviously felt they were just loitering which is against policy and asked them to leave. They refused. The police were called. The police asked them to leave. They refused. The police arrested them for trespassing. A white man then stepped in and said he was there and was going to buy them coffee but it was too late.

Was Starbucks wrong? I tend not to think so. First of all, we have no idea what that particular Starbucks has to deal with on a daily basis, how often they have drug users and dealers and homeless guys loitering in their restaurant, bothering people, shooting up drugs in the bathroom, selling drugs in the bathroom and even having sex in the bathroom. If you have to keep your establishment clean and safe, you HAVE to have rules and you HAVE to profile. The rules are simple at Starbucks and meant to prevent problems: one, you must be a paying customer if you want to use the toilets and you must be a paying customer if you want to hand around for any length of time.

These two men knew these rules and they did not abide by either of them. If the "friend they were meeting" was late, they could have gone ahead and ordered some coffee and drank it while they waited and then they also would have had the right to use the bathroom. After all, if they were really real estate brokers, they could have afforded the drinks. Also, they could have simply left the establishment and waited outside for their friend if they were unwilling to make a purchase while they were waiting.

You might say, yeah, but white guys don't get so scrutinized. We don't know that is true. A lot would depend on their behavior as well as how they were dressed. Sorry, but those two guys did not look like real estate brokers to me. Their hair and dress makes me question that. Maybe they are real estate brokers but they kind of looked a bit like bums so that could certainly have influenced the viewpoint of the Starbucks employees. Also, did they speak like professional men or like troublemakers?

If these really were two real estate brokers meeting another real estate broker, then it is my suggestion they follow the rules of the establishment and dress and act better. Believe me, when I have entered an establishment looking less-than-spiffy, I have gotten profiled as well. Once when I was in Costa Rica, I went to a local Taco Bell at midnight after an all-day long grueling drive involving floods, landslides, and mountain fog. Being a vegetarian, that Taco Bell (in a businessman's district, not a tourist area) had only a Cheesy Potato Taco (not even a bean burrito) as a vegetarian choice. I gave the guy a couple dollars and bought two of the little tacos and he told me to wait a minute. Then he came back and pushed a bag toward me and whispered "Here is a little extra food for you." Hah! He thought I was a homeless druggie because why else would a disheveled white woman show up in that area at midnight buying so little food? He may have misprofiled me but I could hardly blame him for his analysis. Likewise, Starbucks MAY have misprofiled these guys but I don't think, if that was the case, they are entirely to blame.

Version Two: The two guys aren't real estate brokers at all. They really were loitering and when they were getting arrested, some white guy decided to fight the fight against racism  and claimed he was coming to meet them and was going to buy them coffee.

Version Three: It is a setup. These guys ARE real estate brokers but planned with a white colleague to set Starbucks up. They dressed down, loitered, tried to use the bathroom, refused to leave, and when the police arrived, signaled the friend to show up. The plan? To prove racism and maybe make a big lawsuit payday.

Which version will turn out to be true? I don't know. We have to wait until all the evidence is in.

All I can say now is that I do not see this as a big racial discrimination moment for Starbucks and I find it rather frustrating that they are apologizing for standing up for their store policy when it was clear there was a store policy and these two men violated it. The police also have nothing to apologize for as they were doing their job and were quite polite about it.

As I keep saying, I am all for pointing out true racial discrimination and true police misconduct but if the country keeps using poor examples as race problems, they are only fanning the flames and causing a race war and this is NOT how to make things better.


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
April 15, 2018 

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Racial Profiling in Reverse

Racial profiling, targeting someone purely because of race, is wrong. Profiling based on behavior is not wrong. If I, a white woman, walk down an alley and at the end, blocking my way out are ten black men, I may either panic or smile with relief. I will panic if I see ten black men dressed in thug clothes, cussing and talking about bitches. If I see ten black men dressed in suits with copies of The Watchtower in their hands, I am going to happily walk right up to them. The same would hold true for ten white men at the end of the block.

Henry Gates and President Obama are guilty of racial profiling. From what I can see of the officer who arrested Gates, Officer Crowley, is not. Officer Crowley acted professionally as a peace officer and did his job. Gates and Obama simply assumed that the only reason for the arrest was that Crowley just assumed this man, because he is black, was doing something illegal.

First of all, Crowley didn't do anything at all that resembled racial profiling. He already knew that Gates was the homeowner when he arrested him. He wasn't jumping to any conclusion that a black man was up to no good. Gates, a black man, WAS up to no good. He was disorderly and out of control.

If an officer arrests a black man for selling drugs, is that racial profiling? If an officer arrests a black man for stabbing his wife, is that racial profiling? If this is the case, I guess no one of color should be arrested for committing crimes. I am sure the black community will love to have these criminals remaining at large for them to contend with.

I, myself, have been accused of racism and racial profiling in spite of the fact my ex-husband of twenty-five years is black, I have one black son and two biracial children. Oddly, in all the years I have known my ex and my kids, none of them have experienced "driving while black" or any other version of racial profiling. Could this be because their behavior didn't raise suspicions in the minds of the cops? Could it be they know how to speak in a respectful manner to the police and understand, the few times they have encountered a situation with the police, that the police were just doing their job? For that matter, my sons have told me that the few times they were stopped for speeding and such, the officers let them off and they didn't even get a ticket.

I have done ride-alongs with my police officer daughter and I can tell you people who act badly often accuse the police of racial profiling or harassment or brutality and it doesn't matter who is what race. Going on the attack is their way of shifting the blame for their actions.

Gates is doing that exact thing. He acted like an idiot. He was rude and obnoxious and, in my opinion, racist. Obama is backing his friend's poor behavior and accusing the officer of something he has no idea has any merit. Both want Crowley to apologize for his actions and he refuses to do it. Good for him. Crowley, who once gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Celtics star Reggie Lewis, a black man, says he didn't racial profile and he is not a racist. I believe him.

Does racial profiling exist? I am sure on occasion it does. But, I believe a good portion these days is in the mind of the offender. If it does, why did my family never encounter racial profiling.

Maybe we just knew how to behave.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Flying while Muslim

Nine Muslims got tossed off a plane for making what they claim were innocuous comments about plane safety. Already people are writing on blogs claiming this is racial profiling and that Muslims are suffering the same pain African-Americans have experienced in "Driving while black". In order to assess the level of unfairness being leveled at a particular group of people for no reason other than that they are members of a particular race, religion, or subculture, we need to first define racial profiling.

To be called racial profiling, one must essentially view race as the only profiling issue and the issue of race must be entirely arbitrary to the situation. For example, suppose a bomb blows up at a shopping center in Prince George's County, Maryland. One third of the shoppers are Black, one third are White, and one third are Hispanic. Now, if police review the security tapes and send investigators out to interview only the black shoppers, then we have an issue of racial profiling.

Now, let's go to another mall. This mall is celebrating Black History Day and the location in which it sits is in a predominately black area of town. That day, a bomb goes off in the mall. Security tapes show the mall has entirely black shoppers except for this one squirrelly white guy sneaking around a corner with a shaved head and tattoos down both arms. Now, if you were a police detective, who would you be looking at as the possible bomber? Now you can be as politically correct as you want, but practicality says, check out that white dude. It is not just that he is white that one pays extra attention to him. The police would be unlikely to blink if that one white person were a blonde woman in high heels holding the hand of a mixed race child or a white man with his arm around his black girlfriend. But, a guy in an all-black mall on Black History Day who looks like a white supremacist AND a bomb goes off, makes it impossible not to focus on him as a top suspect. Likewise, if there is only one black guy seen at a KKK rally when a bomb goes off, it would be hard not to check him out.

"Driving while black" often is an excuse for folks acting squirrelly WHILE driving and being black rather than JUST driving and being black. Police must profile in the course of their work; they must make split decisions on who to pull over and check out. They work off a profile of what they experience in their work. Believe me, having done ride alongs with my cop daughter, it isn't just blacks that get profiled. Check out that white guy lurking behind that business in a black area of town. He was not ignored by police; they thought, "What's he up to?" and they checked him out. Sure enough, he was trying to burglarize a black man's business. But, they profiled him not only because he was white in a black area, but because he was lurking in an odd way, and because he was somewhat unkempt in the manner of a drug user looking for some way to support his habit. If you are black. dress like a thug, and jump into a vehicle that matches the style drug users like and you look like a drug dealer AND you act in some squirrelly fashion, you might get pulled over (often after the cop runs your plate and finds out something is suspicious about it).

So, now to flying while Muslim. This group looked VERY Muslim with the men with the long beards and the women with their heads covered. They were in a location where they will stand out to those around them (like the white guy at the black mall or behind the black business). Their behavior was possibly squirrelly. Now I know these Muslim passengers claim they said nothing concerning, just something about the safest place to sit on a plane and something about the engine jets right outside the window. All of this might have just been normal chit-chat. However, we have not yet heard the other side of the story, what the a passenger or two overheard; perhaps what was said was a little more scary that what is claimed.

Regardless, everyone knows clearly by now that one doesn't shout fire in a theatre or anything close to it. A white boy who loves rap and hangs with all blacks may be able to say Nigga when with his friends but he best not say that while he is alone in a black club without them. Even as a white middle-aged female I know enough not to lunge for something under my seat while a police officer is standing outside my vehicle waiting for me to produce my license. I also know that when I travel in predominantly Muslim areas like Kashmir and Egypt that covering my arms and head is both wise and respectful. It makes those around me comfortable (even if I disagree with the philosophy behind it). The United States is a country that is not terribly in sync with Islamic views, especially of women, and certain Muslim attire makes many feel extremely wary.

These were intelligent Muslims. The spokesman for the group is a doctor and his brother is a lawyer. He knows darn well that it is simply not wise to make comments that can be misconstrued as threatening on a plane when dressed in the manner of a particular group of people who have members who like to crash planes and participate in suicide missions.

Yes, this may have been a perfectly nice group of people who made a silly comment. Well, you pay for making silly comments if you know that those silly comments shouldn't be made at that location. You learned a lesson of what not to do in that public venue. Sorry. Your bad.

If it turns out they made no suspicious comments at all, then the onus of what happened falls on the other passengers, but let's see what their side of the story is before we accuse them of being racists as opposed to concerned citizens worried about the safety of themselves and others on the plane. I look forward to more clarity before judging one group or the other.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown