The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 12 - The Pitchfork Mob Comes For Starbucks

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the show, everybody. Thank you for listening. Hope you've had a great morning so far.

00:00:04.200 I want to, I don't mean to disturb you, but I want to start with two stories.

00:00:11.440 They're sort of harrowing stories that I want to tell, just to start with, because it relates to

00:00:17.600 the subject at hand. So here's the first story. These are both true stories, by the way.

00:00:22.980 So last week I went into a cafe in DC and I really needed to use the bathroom. So I went in and I

00:00:33.360 said, where's your bathroom? And they said, bathrooms are for customers only. And so clearly the next

00:00:40.820 thing that I did was I called the FBI because it was a hate crime. I mean, what, how else are you

00:00:45.480 supposed to, how else can you respond to something like that? No, actually what I did was I said,

00:00:51.120 oh, okay. And then I bought a coffee and then I said, can you hold the coffee here for a minute?

00:00:56.560 I'm going to use the bathroom because it's, it's actually the concept of a restaurant or a store

00:01:03.540 only allowing customers to use the facilities. That's a really normal concept in the world that

00:01:10.000 I live in, which is just reality where a great many stores and restaurants have that policy.

00:01:15.940 Now here's the second story. Again, totally a true story. This didn't happen to me,

00:01:21.500 but I did witness it and I was traumatized by it. I was at a Starbucks a few months ago and I was

00:01:28.200 sitting there doing my work, minding my own business. There was a guy, it wasn't even that

00:01:32.820 busy by the way, but there was a guy at a table, a few tables over from me. And he was, I noticed he

00:01:39.960 was just sitting there at the table for a little bit. He wasn't drinking any coffee. He didn't buy

00:01:45.400 anything. And then he falls asleep and he's like sleeping at the table for only a couple of minutes

00:01:51.480 and until the manager comes over and wakes him up and says, you're going to have to leave. You can't

00:01:56.720 sleep here. And so the guy packs up his stuff and leaves. It was a white guy, by the way. But again,

00:02:03.140 you know, I didn't even realize it at the time, but, but apparently I witnessed a horrible human

00:02:09.340 rights infringement because this guy had a human right to come into private property and use it as

00:02:16.480 a, uh, you know, a camping ground if he wanted to. Now I tell these stories because they relate to the,

00:02:23.980 um, obviously the Starbucks controversy, which has been raging and still hasn't calmed down, um,

00:02:29.400 over the last few days. And the latest on that, let me see if I can find it. I was just looking at

00:02:33.860 the story. Uh, the daily wire has the story, uh, that on Tuesday, Starbucks announced that the

00:02:39.300 company is going to close over 8,000 stores across the United States next month to conduct racial bias

00:02:47.840 education geared toward preventing discrimination in their stores. Um, so that's approximately 175,000

00:02:58.600 Starbucks employees who now will have to undergo racial bias, um, or, you know, discrimination

00:03:05.600 training because of these two incidents that happened at, uh, two different Starbucks locations

00:03:12.360 over the last few days. If you're not familiar, just very quickly, I'll get you up to speed.

00:03:16.580 There have been protests and boycotts and everything because of these two incidents. The first incident

00:03:22.000 happened in a Starbucks in Philadelphia, a video surfaced and went viral of two black men

00:03:28.540 being escorted out of a Starbucks in cuffs. Um, they were being arrested in handcuffs. It's a,

00:03:36.660 you know, pretty short video and there's not a lot to it. There's not, you know, we don't see what

00:03:40.860 happened before then or after we just see these guys being escorted out. Not a lot of details,

00:03:47.100 but just the image of two black men being arrested and removed from a Starbucks. That was enough in the

00:03:55.280 minds of a lot of people in the minds of the pitchfork, pitchfork mob, especially that was

00:03:59.900 enough to prove that we'll clearly there's racism here. I mean, there couldn't possibly be any other

00:04:05.420 explanation at all. It must be racism because these two guys were black then. So that was, that was,

00:04:13.140 uh, that was enough of a controversy. And then on Monday, I don't know if it was on Monday, but

00:04:19.560 yeah, it was on Monday, a, um, a Starbucks in Los Angeles went viral because there was video,

00:04:29.340 uh, shot by a black man who went into this Starbucks, asked to use the restroom. And they

00:04:36.920 said, well, restrooms are for customers only now again, very normal policy, especially, especially

00:04:44.460 now maybe if you live in a more rural area, if you live in the suburbs, um, maybe you don't

00:04:49.400 encounter it as much, but at urban restaurants and stores where there are a lot of people coming in

00:04:54.800 and out, this is extremely common. In fact, it's the norm. It's, I can't remember the last time I

00:05:00.900 went into a, you know, uh, a, a restaurant in a city and they would just let anyone use the bathroom,

00:05:07.720 even if they weren't customers. So really normal policy, this guy, he could have responded the way

00:05:13.220 that I did when I was in DC. And I was told the same thing. And that is just buy something, buy a

00:05:17.040 coffee, buy a, you know, just buy a, buy a cup of yogurt. I mean, buy anything. And then you can

00:05:23.140 use the restroom, but that's not what this guy does. Instead. He pulls out a, his camera and,

00:05:29.180 um, he pulls out his phone and he starts taking video that a white guy walks out of the restroom

00:05:35.760 and without asking, by the way, you know, this, the, the black guy comes up to the white guy,

00:05:39.380 puts them on camera, doesn't ask his permission. And he finds out that the white guy apparently

00:05:45.040 hadn't bought anything either yet. He was allowed to use the bathroom. So that proves, um, racism

00:05:52.320 that he goes up to the manager who, by the way, does not appear to be white herself. She's a woman

00:05:57.860 appears to be not sure what her race is, but she appears to be a non-white woman.

00:06:02.760 And he starts berating her, um, for her supposed racial bias. And in both cases, that's enough for

00:06:09.960 the, uh, pitchfork mob. And so now, you know, Starbucks is in cleanup mode. The Starbucks CEO

00:06:17.040 just absolutely threw his own employees under the bus. This, the manager at the Philadelphia location,

00:06:23.400 he just threw her under the bus, didn't even try to defend her. And now he's been, he met with the

00:06:28.500 mayor of Philadelphia. Uh, he's met with, you know, activists. He met with the two men who were arrested.

00:06:33.620 He's been good. He was on good morning America. I mean, he's been meeting with, uh, he met with,

00:06:37.980 um, he met with, uh, I think he met with the King of Saudi Arabia as well. For some reason,

00:06:42.700 he's just meeting with everybody talking about this and just throwing his employees under the

00:06:47.560 bus in the process. And even this racial bias discrimination training, you're essentially

00:06:55.800 throwing your employees under the bus. Again, what you're implying, I mean, if you're forcing 175,000

00:07:02.060 employees to undergo this bias training, what you're insinuating is that a lot of them are racially

00:07:09.800 biased. Now here's the thing, a couple of things. First of all, I'm not a fan of Starbucks policy.

00:07:19.340 I do like their product. I'll admit, I know a lot of people don't, they say it tastes burnt,

00:07:23.840 but, uh, I guess I like burnt coffee. So I like their burnt coffee. Um, not a fan of their politics.

00:07:31.020 So I'm not one to usually defend Starbucks, but even less, am I a fan of pitchfork mobs?

00:07:39.840 And I know that sometimes conservatives will tend to, when they see something like this,

00:07:43.960 they see the liberal pitchfork mob coming after a liberal company. The conservatives will,

00:07:49.280 will sit back and say, Oh, isn't this nice? Isn't this nice to watch this happen? See,

00:07:53.420 they're being, being hoisted with their own petard. That's a, that's a nice thing to see.

00:07:57.160 Well, I think it's a really bad idea. I've said this many times. It's a bad idea to take the side

00:08:06.140 of the pitchfork mob in any situation, no matter who they're coming after. I mean, the pitchfork mob 0.59

00:08:12.000 should always be stood against. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, I, you know,

00:08:18.220 I don't know this, this manager, the Philadelphia location, she doesn't work there anymore. I guess

00:08:23.000 she got fired the manager at law in the Los Angeles location. Maybe they're racist. I, I don't know.

00:08:29.700 I can't, I don't know them personally. I can't say for sure they aren't, but there's, there are quite

00:08:35.760 a few reasons to suspect that there are probably other explanations and what we should do if we are

00:08:42.500 rational and honest people. Um, and we're, you know, and we're decent people as well,

00:08:49.180 then we're not going to immediately assume when something like this happens, we're not going to

00:08:54.260 immediately assume, Oh, well, it must be racism. We're not just going to leapfrog over all of the

00:09:00.080 other possible explanations and say, Nope, it's none of them. It's gotta be racism. So what are some

00:09:06.780 other possible explanations? We know in the, in the case of Philadelphia, let's take them one at a

00:09:11.520 time. Philadelphia, the two men were sitting in the store, taking up seats. Um, they hadn't actually

00:09:19.620 purchased anything. This is loitering. It's trespassing. The, these restaurants do not exist

00:09:28.500 as just public forums to, for you to just come in and hang out anytime you want it. They own it.

00:09:36.840 They set the rules for engagement and their rules for engagement are, I think pretty reasonable,

00:09:41.860 pretty clear, pretty simple. You got to buy something if you want to sit at the table,

00:09:45.260 because there are a lot of, here's what happens. There are a lot of customers who do buy something

00:09:49.520 and they would like to have a table to sit at, but you're taking up the table, even though you

00:09:54.020 didn't buy anything. And that's not fair. And so that's why these companies have rules against it.

00:09:59.620 Now, it just so happens that this particular location in Philadelphia has had apparently a problem

00:10:05.640 with loitering recently. And so this has been a policy that they've been focusing on more and

00:10:10.540 more. Um, and they've had to enforce. So the store employees tried to deal with the situation

00:10:18.660 calmly and peacefully and reasonably. And they told the men that, look, you know, if you're not going

00:10:25.300 to buy anything, then you have to leave. The two guys refused to leave. They refused to leave the store.

00:10:34.620 Okay. Even though they were told you got to buy something or leave. They said, apparently they

00:10:39.940 said, we're not going to buy anything and we're not going to leave either. And then the employee

00:10:44.160 said, okay, well then we're going to, we're going to, um, we're going to call the police.

00:10:49.020 And apparently what the two men said was, well, go ahead and call them. We're still not going to

00:10:52.560 leave. Then the police arrive and they're negotiating with these men for several minutes and saying,

00:10:58.820 look, you just need to leave. You can't, it's just not, it's private property. You can't just hang out here.

00:11:04.120 If you're not a customer and they still refuse to leave. So let, let, let's go, let's go through

00:11:10.700 the, let's go through the process here. Okay. Step one, we have them deciding not to buy anything

00:11:16.640 and take up a table. Step two, even when they're told, well, if you're not going to buy anything,

00:11:21.280 you got to leave. They still refuse to leave. Step three, the police show up and say, well,

00:11:25.480 you got to leave. And they still refused. So then they got arrested. Now, of course it's,

00:11:31.520 it's claimed that the white P that, um, it's claimed that, well, you know, white people loiter

00:11:37.300 at Starbucks all the time and they're never asked to leave. Really? I mean, do you know that

00:11:43.620 that's quite a thing to just declare? Well, white, white people are never told to leave Starbucks.

00:11:49.280 How do you know? You're, you're, you're telling me it never happens. You know, that for a fact,

00:11:53.980 you know, that at this location in Philadelphia, they have never asked white people to leave for

00:11:58.880 loitering. Do you know that? Because if you know it, I mean, let, please provide your evidence

00:12:03.420 because that would be very significant. I mean, if you had evidence that they frequently allow white

00:12:09.320 people to loiter and never enforce the rules against white people, but then they do against black 1.00

00:12:13.280 people. Well, then that is compelling evidence of racial discrimination. And then the protests are

00:12:17.840 warranted. Um, in fact, the protests wouldn't even be warranted even in that case, because it's,

00:12:23.860 that would still just be one manager who's now fired, who's guilty, but, um, at least they'd be

00:12:29.660 more warranted than they are now. So if you have evidence of that, then let me know. I can tell you

00:12:33.780 that I have, I just told you, I have seen myself at a Starbucks, a white person being kicked out for 0.68

00:12:39.620 loitering. So I know it does happen and I'm betting it's happened at this Philadelphia location

00:12:45.320 because that's, see, see, that's the thing. If let's say, um, this manager, whoever this person is,

00:12:55.380 is just uncontrollably, uncontainably racist. I mean, they're so racist that they would just,

00:13:02.940 that they would actually kick out two black men simply for being black. I mean, that is,

00:13:08.760 that's not just racist. That is, that's like racism on steroids. That is, you're so racist

00:13:13.940 that you're going to even give up your job because that's what you're doing. That's what the manager

00:13:19.020 will be doing in that case. The manager is saying, you know what, I'm going to forfeit this job just

00:13:23.380 so I can make a racist statement against these black men, which is possible. But then the question is, 1.00

00:13:30.480 how did this manager manage to survive and function at a Starbucks in Philadelphia

00:13:41.820 if they're that racist against black people? Because I would assume, and I'm just assuming,

00:13:49.660 but I think it's pretty safe assumption that this Starbucks in Philadelphia, we're not talking about

00:13:55.880 a Starbucks in the middle of a, you know, a town of 500 in North Dakota. Okay. Starbucks in Philadelphia,

00:14:01.180 they probably have black customers coming in and out of that store hundreds of times a week, if not a

00:14:07.480 day. And so has this manager, I mean, has she, does she always do this? If she's so racist against 1.00

00:14:17.160 black people, why is this the first time she's kicked out black people when there's been so many 1.00

00:14:21.800 others, she could have kicked out and she didn't. It just, it just doesn't make a lot of sense.

00:14:28.080 It's possible. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. Now, then we have the incident in Los Angeles.

00:14:35.580 Now that, that one to me is even less of a, I mean, that one to me is so clearly, it's very clear

00:14:41.720 that the guy came in looking for, he want, that's why he pulled out the video. It's not a normal,

00:14:47.680 if you're just innocently there and you just want to use the bathroom and someone

00:14:51.680 tells you, okay, well, um, you know, you got to buy something to use the bathroom.

00:14:56.900 If your response is to pull out a camera and start taking a video for Twitter,

00:15:02.540 that means that this is what you were looking for. Okay. This is not, this was not, this wasn't an

00:15:07.940 innocent request on your part. You were looking for this exact response so that you could try to

00:15:13.120 entrap them in some fake false racism claim. But if the question is, well, okay, well, why did they,

00:15:19.840 they said, they, they, they, they said no to the black guy, but the white guy was allowed to,

00:15:23.560 to use the bathroom, even though he didn't buy anything, you know, must be racism could be,

00:15:30.420 or, you know, there are other explanations. It's possible that the white guy is a regular customer.

00:15:34.960 He's there all the time. They know him. They know that he's going to buy something. So they let him

00:15:39.660 use the bathroom first. I mean, to me, as just a logical person, that would be my first assumption.

00:15:44.800 I would think it's probably that because regular customers frequently get privileges that non-regular

00:15:51.600 customers don't get. I have several coffee shops that I go to all the time and they'll have my

00:15:57.300 order ready for me before I even get up to the, to the, to the counter. I get free refills. Okay.

00:16:01.480 I get all this stuff because I'm there all the time and I'm practically keeping them in business on my

00:16:05.100 own. So could that be the explanation? Should we at least consider that explanation

00:16:13.220 before we leap right to, Oh, it must be racism. It must be that this non-white woman working at a 1.00

00:16:21.520 Starbucks in, in Los Angeles harbors this grudge against black people. I mean, it, again, possible,

00:16:30.140 but given the context and the situation, that would not even be close to my first assumption.

00:16:36.300 So of course, everything I'm saying, it doesn't matter because I can't, you know,

00:16:39.500 you can't calm down the mob and, uh, and these employees, they don't even have their CEO behind

00:16:45.280 them. So it's just, it's a done deal, but we do have to consider and think about, I mean, what's the,

00:16:53.780 what's the implication here? Because now what Starbucks has done now is they have now announced

00:17:00.640 that you're allowed to loiter in their stores. It's, this is what the CEO, by apologizing profusely

00:17:10.180 on behalf of a manager who was simply enforcing rules against loitering by doing that, what he has

00:17:17.780 declared to everybody in America is, well, at least if you're not white, you're allowed to loiter. 0.60

00:17:23.680 I mean, come on in, use the wifi, sit down, use the bathrooms. You don't have to buy anything.

00:17:27.940 In fact, bring your own packed lunch, bring a, bring your own dinner spread and just, uh, you know,

00:17:34.420 just sit out and bring the family and just set up, you could set up a, set up a blanket there on the

00:17:39.280 ground and have a picnic. It's basically what they've announced. They can't enforce

00:17:44.920 rules against loitering anymore. There's a reason why I, I, when it comes to situations like this,

00:17:54.800 I tend very often to fall on the side of the private company. I'll tell you something. I felt

00:18:04.000 the same. I was saying the same thing with that, with the whole controversy with, um, whatever

00:18:10.140 airline it was, I'm forgetting which airline was it where they dragged the guy out because he wouldn't

00:18:15.280 give up his seat. And I sided with the airline on that. You know why? Because even if it's an unfair

00:18:23.320 policy, when you're sitting in their establishment or in their airplane and they tell you to leave,

00:18:30.560 you have to leave. They own it. You don't, you can't exercise some right over and above their own

00:18:38.400 right to their own property. It's a very dangerous game. We start playing when we tell people that you

00:18:46.780 now have a human right to just march into a private establishment and just stay there. Even

00:18:53.180 if they tell you to leave, even if the police tell you to leave, you don't have to. No, I think that

00:19:00.380 that's a, the implications there are very dangerous. So most of the time I'm going to tend to side with

00:19:05.860 the private company, whether the policy is fair or not. At the end of the day, they, it's their

00:19:12.160 business. It's their building. It's their plane. They exercise authority over it. And you have to

00:19:18.660 play by their rules. If you want to use their property, this to me is just, is just a basic rule

00:19:25.440 of living in a free and decent and civilized society. But we live in such a society, uh, less and less,

00:19:32.440 I suppose. So there it is. There's my contrarian take on the Starbucks situation. Thanks for listening,

00:19:39.480 everybody. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

The Matt Walsh Show - April 18, 2018

Ep. 12 - The Pitchfork Mob Comes For Starbucks

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript