Oh, I think had I been there, I might have been able to figure it out.
But I’ll say this: Whenever I go into a Starbucks to use the restroom, I usually try to buy something, even dinky, because I know the restrooms are supposed to be for customers. I know they often don’t police it, but I still know it’s policy.
Now, sometimes I do sneak a leak, for lack of a better term, and when I do this, I am aware of the fact that I am breaking the rules.
The racism here is that because of white privilege, I have WAY less of a chance of being arrested by the police than a black person, each of those times I break the rules. Absolutely, that fact is due to the system of societal racism we live in. And yes, that absolutely makes what happened to the black guys who got arrested at Starbucks “racist,” just as it makes the inverse of me not really having to worry about that outcome “racist.”
But, in my view anyway, it still doesn’t mean that the person who called the cops was him or herself racist, and decided to call the cops in that one circumstance because of personal racism. It doesn’t make it less bad or excusable! It doesn’t make the whole circumstance anything other than an example of society’s racism. But there are nuances to these things, and I for one am not the type to sweet them under the rug. Because I feel that the only way to actually combat the phenomenon, is to be aware of how insidious it can often be.
Edit: Having watched the video at following link, it does seem that maybe the racism of the Starbucks incident was more outright – this based on the fact that another (non-black) customer had been there, allegedly, “for hours” without buying anything, and not getting kicked out. If (white) people lounging at the same location regularly was a thing, without this happening, then yes, it is highly suspicious. I really do try to avoid Starbucks however much possible, so I am not frankly too aware of how much “lounging” tends to go on. I would never longe at a Starbucks without buying anything, or the very few times I make a very brief pee stop, so my own knowledge base is quite limited.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/us/philadelphia-starbucks-911-call/index.html
