Watch The Short Film Starbucks Showed Employees To Teach Them About Racial Bias

175,000 Starbucks employees were shown this film about racial bias when the company held a nationwide session to kick off a curriculum on the subject.

The video was made by award-winning documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson and featured accounts from people of color on how racial biases affect their everyday life. It also included Sherrilyn Ifill who is the president and director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense.

“To be welcomed as a customer means that not only do I allow you in, but it means that I’m glad you’re here. I want to serve you. I want your business, and I don’t draw distinctions between you and other customers in terms of your value,” she explained. “But it’s time we talked about what it means to not be welcomed as an American citizen.”

The film aimed to highlight how differently Black people have to view and navigate public spaces than white people do. It is especially pertinent, in light of many openly racist acts that have happened in businesses recently, including in incident in Starbucks, in which two black men were arrested for asking to use the restroom without ordering.

Discrimination shouldn’t be tolerated, and it’s up to us to make sure that it becomes a stigmatized practice, rather than a regular facet of society.

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