Starbucks Trainers Sends Shock Message to Jewish Group -- You're Gone
Starbucks recently came under heavy fire from the left for its allegedly racist behavior after two black men in a Philadelphia store were arrested after they took up a table and refused to order any drinks while waiting on a friend, all of which was caught on a viral video.
That led Starbucks to announce it would close all of its stores for one day so every employee and manager could receive anti-bias and anti-discrimination “diversity” training. However, in the company’s zeal to prove how unbiased and non-discriminatory it is in its treatment of blacks, Starbucks managed to show bias and discrimination toward another minority group.
According to Politico, Starbucks appears to have caved to pressure from progressive black activists and removed the predominately Jewish Anti-Defamation League — which has long led the fight against anti-Semitic discrimination against Jews — from the top tier of the company’s lineup of anti-discrimination trainers for its upcoming “diversity” sessions.
Instead, the ADL has been demoted to a lower tier of advisers to the training and will be excluded from assisting in developing the curriculum that will be used to train Starbucks employees on how not to discriminate against members of the liberal base.
Initially, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt had been invited by the coffee chain to be one of four leaders of the diversity training sessions, but Greenblatt’s name was conspicuously absent in an April 24 press release about the training event, which only mentioned in passing that Starbucks would “consult with” the ADL on anti-discrimination training, among an array of other advisory groups.
“When Starbucks asked for assistance, we agreed to help,” said ADL spokesman Todd Gutnick. “As to whether Starbucks may or may not now want to utilize our expertise, you should ask them.”
For its part, Starbucks insisted it didn’t bow to any sort of political pressure campaign. It was merely constructing a “multi-phase approach” to combating bias and discrimination and that the ADL would be included in that effort, albeit in a reduced role.
However, that denial rings hollow when viewed against comments made against the ADL by other organizations that will play a role in the diversity training, particularly those groups focused on black Americans who happen to hold their own anti-Semitic biases.
Tamika Mallory — an organizer of the Women’s March movement who has ties to the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis Farrakhan — posted to Twitter upon learning of the ADL’s participation in the training, “The ADL is CONSTANTLY attacking black and brown people. This is a sign that (Starbucks) are tone deaf and not committed to addressing the concerns of black folk.”
Her sentiment was echoed by Anti Police-Terror Project co-founder Cat Brooks, who told ABC News, “You can’t be a piece of an anti-bias training when you openly support a racist, oppressive and brutal colonization of Palestine.”
Then there were the complaints via a Twitter rant by the Washington D.C. chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement, which accused the ADL of being “ultra pro-cop” and covering for racist police behavior while also facilitating the training of D.C. officers by Israeli Defense Force trainers, as well as not sufficiently supporting the BLM movement to its liking.
While Starbucks may claim that those loud voices caustically criticizing the ADL played no role in the decision to demote the Jewish group from a lead role in their anti-discrimination training, Liel Leibovitz of Tablet Mag saw things quite differently.
He noted how beholden the Starbucks corporation — particularly CEO Howard Schultz — was to the Democrat Party and noted quite cynically that the Democratic Party seemed more interested in cozying up to the likes of Farrakhan and other Jew-haters more than the Jews who have long voted for liberals and filled the party coffers with donations.
“Under this new lunatic vision — expressed by Mallory and her fellow Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour and increasingly endorsed by the party’s mainstream — Jews, long the party’s staunch supporters, are rapidly becoming second-class citizens, the sort of folks who can still give money but not expect to have their voices heard,” wrote Liebovitz.
“Considering the fact that Jews are, by far, the most prominent targets of hate crimes in America these days, giving in to anti-Semites and removing the ADL from a diversity training initiative of a major American corporation is particularly heinous,” he added. “Shame on Starbucks for giving in to bigotry.”
We couldn’t agree more with that assessment, and can’t help but notice that racism and bigotry are only bad in the eyes of the left when non-leftists are accused of it.
So much for being the party of open-minded tolerance and love for all.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
