
A Pennsylvania federal judge has ordered Starbucks to pay a former manager an additional $2.7 million in damages after a jury agreed with her claim that she was wrongly fired for being white. The Philadelphia woman was fired after a 2018 incident where the coffee chain was accused of racism after calling the police on two black men.
April 2018
NEVER FORGET
Two black men were arrested at a Starbucks in Philly for doing nothing but waiting for a friend.
& now Starbucks is banning employees from wearing anything in support of black lives?
THIS IS INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM #BoycottStarbucks pic.twitter.com/Ja1I3IdtCg
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) June 11, 2020
From The Atlanta Black Star:
Former Starbucks regional manager Shannon Phillips claims she became a scapegoat in the wake of the controversy in April 2018 when police arrested two Black men in a Rittenhouse Square Starbucks in Philadelphia because they refused to leave the store after being told they could not sit inside without buying anything. A cellphone video of the arrests went viral, leading to a national backlash against the coffee store chain.
…
The two arrested men, young entrepreneurs Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson (23 at the time), were released from custody and reached an agreement with the state of Philadelphia, granted $200,000 to help them in their business venture.
Phillips was fired from Starbucks in what she felt was nothing more than a scapegoat tactic to allow Starbucks to appear as if things were being done about the situation. She believed that as regional manager, she had nothing to do with the arrests of the Black men at the 18th and Spruce Street store.
Read the full article over at The Atlanta Black Star.
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