Is an apology enough anymore for American minorities?

On a Thursday afternoon in a Philly Starbucks two black men were arrested. They didn't make a purchase but had been waiting for a third party, developer Andrew Yaffe to make a real estate deal. By the time the developer showed up the manager had called the cops and the two men were already in handcuffs surrounded by 7 police officers. The two men weren’t charged but released eight hours later. This eventually lead up to protesters outside of starbucks chanting “ starbucks coffee is anti black”

According to the Inquirer, “The ACLU noted that the police service area where the Starbucks is located, part of the Ninth District, has the city's greatest racial disparities in pedestrian stops. In 2017, 67 percent of stops in that area were of African-Americans, who account for just 3 percent of the area's population.” Many black philadelphia residents who spend their time in rittenhouse square claim this is nothing new.

Is this a recurring theme in america? What a coincidence only a month later a white women calls the cops on a black student for sleeping in yale on a couch. The white woman claimed she didn't know if there was justification for the black women being there. She calmly responded“ I deserve to be here. I pay tuition like everybody else. I’m not going to justify my existence here” During the incident after being questioned for 15 minutes by the cops she opened her dorm and called the cops behaviour “harassment” It seems to me that multiple places need to reevaluate how welcoming they are to people of color in America.

Delaware Online stated, “Facing furor over racial profiling in the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks, the company announced it will be closing its stores on May 29 to offer unconscious bias training. Some are questioning how effective that will be.” It is sad that it takes situation like these for officials in high establishments to realize that they need to make places more inclusive for people of color , just like how now the dean of yale think efforts need to be made to make yale more inclusive.

After watching the incident Forsyth student Natasha felt it was stupid and stated“ if the starbucks employees should've had a no outside food , beverages sign and approach the men and ask them to leave before taking the knowingly risky way of calling the cops.” I agree with this statement with the history of black men dying from simple misunderstandings by the hands of a cop why would you put those young men in that position.“ I think they are going to be taking training classes to learn to approach all races in the same manner in a conscious way” natasha said. If you think about it , if school and housing wasn't segregated the manager would have been more culturally aware and the problem could have been solved in a simple manner. So while the unconscious bias training” sounds nice I think we need to take this approach in housing, schooling and everywhere else that minorities face disparities.