On May 29th, Starbucks closed 8,000 US stores for anti-bias training. The training was a response to allegations of racism that took place in Starbucks stores last month.

One of the racist incidences took place in Philadelphia at the Starbucks on 18th and Spruce Street.

Two African American men, Rashon Nelson, and Donte Robinson were arrested for trespassing when they sat at a table inside of Starbucks to wait for a friend. According to The Guardian, the Starbucks manager called the police because the two young men sat down without placing an order.

On-lookers were disgusted.

Philly writer and activist Melissa DePino was in Starbucks during the incident. She tweeted:

A couple of days later, another racist incident in a Starbucks near Los Angeles, CA made national news. Pedro Hernandez ordered two drinks from the barista. Instead of writing "Pedro" as the name on the cup, the barista wrote "beaner" instead. Beaner is a derogatory term for Mexican Americans. Pricilla, Pedro's co-worker, witnessed the incident. She reached out to Starbucks on Twitter. Starbucks replied to Pricilla's tweet:

So it's because of incidents like this Starbucks stores closed last Wednesday: to "teach employees about tolerance." But this begs the question:

Doesn't Starbucks aim to be a community gathering?

The United States is extremely diverse, so it's going to take more than a couple of hours of training to fix this problem. I thought that respecting people was a no-brainer, but sadly I was mistaken.

I was also surprised that the two young men from Philadelphia settled for $1 after the racially-charged incident and asked for a sum of money to be donated to charity. At any rate, the desire to give back afterward is telling of the men's character.

And another question- will this "sensitivity" training work?

Although it does not shock me that blatant racism is still taking place in our community, it does shock me that some Starbucks employees felt the need to openly discriminate against customers without thinking about the repercussions. It's sad to say that respect is something that is far out of reach for some people.

And on that note, I hope this is the last time I hear about racial incidents in Starbucks stores.