Hashtag of the day: BoycottStarbucks - boycott of coffee shops because of racism

EVERY DAY ON THE INTERNET SOMETHING IS GOING ON: someone releases clips, someone launches hashtags, and someone says smart (or not) things - and we focus on the most important or just curious.

#BoycottStarbucks

A scandal erupted in Philadelphia last weekend: two African Americans were arrested in one of the coffee shops of the Starbucks network after they did not want to place an order without a friend they were waiting for in a cafe, reports New York Magazine. Judging by the video posted on Twitter, the law enforcement officers did not convince their arguments, even though their friend Andrew Jaffe, who arrived at the same time as the police, was puzzled to release his comrades. Nine hours later, the police released the men without charge. According to the head of the police Richard Ross, his employees "did nothing wrong" and only acted according to the rules, detaining the men after they "three times refused to leave the institution."

Witnesses of the arrest did not agree with this - according to them, the men behaved very calmly and did not disturb the peace of the cafe visitors. In social networks, too, were outraged by the incident and launched the hashtag #BoycottStarbucks with a call to boycott Starbucks. “What a strange coincidence - like a white woman, I was never considered suspicious if I didn’t order anything at Starbucks,” wrote one of the Twitter users.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, in turn, apologized to the victims, said he was "extremely upset" because of the incident - "a prime example of racial discrimination in 2018," and promised to review the network policy in Philadelphia. The head of Starbucks, Kevin Johnson, also called this situation unacceptable, promising to apologize to the men personally, as well as "to investigate the incident" and "take all the necessary steps so that this would never happen again."