Starbucks, racist Holly Hylton and magic training

Do you think we’re anywhere near through discussing this racist, Central City Philadelphia Starbucks incident that resulted in the coffee shop’s manager, Holly Hylton, siccing police officers on two African descendants — Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson — for sitting in the café for just two minutes without buying anything?

Hell. Naw. Starbucks could repeat its planned shutdown of their 8,000+ stores and corporate offices for one more day to conduct a second round of magical “be nice to cull’rd folks” training, and get its storybook-we-shall-overcome meeting between Hylton, Nelson and Robinson, and the fact that Starbucks has a systemic business problem will remain standing while naked. And the racism porn of Hylton stands right next to that.

Let’s talk business first — go to Starbucks’ website to read the company’s core values.

The first value says: “Creating a culture of warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome.”

“Everyone who’s White,” I guess.

My palate has forbidden me from patronizing Starbucks long before the reign of Hylton, but I pass by the stores often enough to see people hanging out there as if it’s their living room as they binge-watch either Netflix or the street.

How is getting two Black men arrested for sitting in a Starbucks for two minutes a “culture of warmth and belonging”?

The company needs to prove their core values are not digital debris disguised as window dressing, and own the bad hiring decision that led to Hylton joining the team. She violated at least one of those values, and the fact that her departure from Starbucks was a “mutual decision” makes me wonder if company CEO Kevin Johnson really gets it.

The best-run organizations connect their hiring, compensation and job appraisal processes to core values.

Which means there shouldn’t be any room for a narrative that says Hilton and Starbucks “mutually parted ways” for her violation of those values.

CEO Johnson should’ve said “Starbucks will only tolerate a culture of warmth and belonging, as our company values indicate. Therefore, we have terminated store manager Holly Hylton’s employment, effective immediately.”

Johnson should then make sure all human resources policies and and leadership behaviors are aligned with those values.

For instance, what were the district manager and regional vice president thinking when they hired Hylton? What assessment did they use to determine if Hylton had a sufficiently-high diversity IQ? Did they assess Hylton’s competencies according to the company’s values?

Christopher Norris gave us reason to believe that Hylton was at least inconsistent, and probably a racist. But former Starbucks employee Ieshaa Cash gave us full-on confirmation that Hylton is a racist who mistreated employees and customers. Did everyone else at Starbucks miss or endorse this behavior?

This intense level of core values review and alignment may not create better human beings, but it can completely change employee behavior — and do so more effectively than any magic workshop ever can.

Instead, we saw Starbucks executive chairman Howard Schultz talk about how Hylton is “suffering in her own way” and he didn’t think she intended for the police to arrest Nelson and Robinson.

I covered this in an earlier piece that probably sounded like a tutorial for people who ever consider calling the police to deal with a problem concerning a Black person.

But that wasn’t my intention. Shouldn’t everyone in 2018 know what can happen … ?

I’m waiting to hear Hylton say she thought the police were going to take the two men out to see a Phillies game so I can call her a liar …

song currently stuck in my head: “another day” – ray, goodman and brown