Assumed Racism

The brouhaha over two black men arrested at Starbucks seems much ado over nothing. It is well-known, at least by anyone with experience in the world, that coffee shop owners are not in the business of providing a free meeting space or, for that matter, free restroom facilities to the public. No, they are in the business of selling coffee. No one, black or white, who sits at a table without buying anything is going to be welcome, ever. Of course, the two black men, instead of acknowledging this obvious fact, have opted, quite naturally, to maximize their media exposure and, hopefully, profiteering over the whole incident, which was entirely their own fault. Had one of them simply purchased a $2.85 coffee, none of this would have happened. The manager would have perceived them both as paying customers and ignored them. Instead, they opted to freeload off Starbucks and exploit it as a meeting place, without paying a nickel for anything. Of course, their self-inflicted problems are all the fault of bad, racist whitey. Close 8,000 stores nation-wide immediately to scold the baristas and teach them not to expect blacks to pay for anything. Yes, that's the way to handle it. This is exactly the type of thing, incidentally, that causes white folk to vote Republican in large majorities. Punish white people for being human, for expecting paying customers in their store.

Racists used to be a really bad word, back in the day. When whites are castigated as racists on the national media every day for quite ordinary and common-sense activities, the term "racist" loses its cachet. In today's society, "racist" simply means human. What we have learned from Starbucks is that expecting people to pay for services rendered, that is racist.