When a Philadelphia Starbucks manager called the police after two black men refused to leave, the chain of events ended with the burnt taste of the overpriced coffee chain colluding with anti-Semitism.
Starbucks reacted to the brief arrest by blaming the
police, but Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, who is
African-American, initially said that his officers, “did absolutely nothing
wrong”. But then he was forced to offer a bewildering apology to the arrested
men, the officers and the entire city.
“It is me who in large part made most of the situation
worse than it was,” he announced.
But that wasn’t Ross. It was Black Lives Matter and other
black nationalist groups which targeted the coffee chain, chanting, “Starbucks
coffee is anti-black”. And to appease them, Starbucks rolled out a major
company retraining effort overseen by former Attorney General Eric Holder,
along with Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, Sherrilyn Ifill of
the NAACP, Heather McGhee of Demos and Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL.
Greenblatt was the only non-black civil rights leader on the list.
And, like a cup of overpriced Starbucks coffee, the burnt
taste got worse the deeper you went.
In February, Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam had
delivered a violently anti-Semitic speech to an appreciative audience that
included Tamika Mallory. "White folks are going down," the hate group
leader had declared. "And Farrakhan, by God's grace, has pulled the cover
off of that Satanic Jew."
Farrakhan had praised Mallory and the Women’s March
leader had dubbed him the greatest of all time. Nor was she the only Women’s
March leader with a crush on the black nationalist bigot. Linda Sarsour and
Carmen Perez had their own Farrakhan
fandom. And despite pressure, the radical leftist org had
refused to condemn Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, but continued to defend
the hate group.
In the Greenblatt era, the ADL had become even more
tentative about challenging anti-Semitism on the left. It had been largely
absent in the battles over campus anti-Semitism, had defended some
forms of BDS and had attacked Jewish
civil rights activists, such as Canary Mission, for fighting for
Jewish rights.
But the ADL took
credit for condemning Mallory’s attendance and support for
Farrakhan. The Nation of Islam’s anti-Semitism had been widely denounced. And
the ADL didn’t think it was taking much of a risk.
When Starbucks made its retraining announcement, Mallory
and her allies were quick to pounce. They berated the coffee chain for working
with an “anti-black” organization. The dispute split the left between black
nationalists and establishment groups. Mallory was
joined by Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives
Matter, while Neera Tanden of the Center for American Progress, called them
out.
“Women of color who promote anti-Semitism -- defending
Farrakhan and attacking ADL - are deserving of criticism and I say that as a
woman of color.” Tanden had retorted sharply.
But the brief shining moment of decency on the left
quickly vanished as Starbucks dumped the ADL.
In the dispute between black nationalist Farrakhan fans
and the ADL, Starbucks chose anti-Semitism. The coffee chain was spending money
buying immunity from protests by Tamika’s allies. There was no reason for it to
continue working with the ADL if the organization not only couldn’t protect it
from angry protesters, but if its Jewish associations might actually incite
even more attacks on its businesses.
And the rest of the Starbucks social justice deck would
have been more likely to lean toward Mallory.
As Attorney General, Eric Holder had become notorious for
his collaboration with black racist and anti-Semitic groups, including The New
Black Panther Party and Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Sherrilyn Ifill
of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund had participated in the Women’s March. And
the NAACP has its own troubling history with Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.
Tossing the ADL overboard, the corporate leadership of
Starbucks showed that it would fight racism, but collude with anti-Semitism.
And it wasn’t the first time Starbucks had colluded with anti-Semitism.
"Neither Starbucks nor the company’s chairman,
president and CEO Howard Schultz provide financial support to the Israeli
government and/or the Israeli Army in any way," the press release assured.
It stated that its Israeli stores were closed and that
its business plans for the region would be developed with a Kuwaiti family.
Kuwait has been known to boycott companies doing business with Israel.
The press release insisted that Starbucks is "a
non-political organization." Except that’s a lie.
Starbucks had pushed for gun control, cheered gay
marriage and refugee migration. The coffee chain hadn’t been worried about the
resulting boycotts. It was only concerned about offending customers with
certain views. Those views have always included anti-Semitism.
The politically correct coffee chain dropped the ADL for
the same reason it had disavowed Israel.
It would have been unthinkable for Starbucks to have put
out a press release assuring the KKK that it didn’t do business with black
people. Or that it didn’t donate to gay marriage or to Muslim groups.
It’s never been proven that the Philly Starbucks had
racist motivations, but the entire company has a consistent history of
blatantly pandering to anti-Semites that is as bitter as its dark roast.
The Starbucks double standard on anti-Semitism is the
same one that pervades the left.
From Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson to the Women’s March,
civil rights has required a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with anti-Semitism. Al
Sharpton led a race riot through a Jewish neighborhood and was rewarded for it
with a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention, an MSNBC show and
easy access to Obama and Holder. Mallory had been photographed with Farrakhan,
but so had Obama.
And then there’s the NAACP, whose legal defense fund had
also been enlisted by Starbucks.
NAACP leaders have repeatedly appeared with Farrakhan.
Benjamin Chavis, who had become notorious for convening a summit with the
Nation of Islam, later joined the hate group. Ben Jealous, currently running
for the governor of Maryland, appeared at forums attended
by Farrakhan.
Muslim advocacy has followed the same pattern with groups
such as CAIR, whose leaders have made anti-Semitic
statements and who have hosted
Neo-Nazis, being elevated while their bigotry is ignored.
That’s how we ended up with Tamika Mallory and Linda
Sarsour. And Louis Farrakhan.
The post-King era has erroneously conflated racial
tribalism with civil rights. Its civil rights leaders are invariably black
nationalists and that’s why they find it so hard to resist Farrakhan’s racist
supremacism.
Starbucks could have rejected both racism and
anti-Semitism. But that’s too much work. Like most corporations, it doesn’t
partner with racial healers, but racial dividers. They’re the ones who threaten
its bottom line. And they’re the ones who are seen as having credibility with
the radicals on the street.
The real lesson here is for the ADL which tried to have
it both ways. Under Greenblatt, it wanted to belong to the social justice axis
while paying lip service to the fight against anti-Semitism. It did the least
that it could do to challenge anti-Semitism on the left. And even that proved
to be too much for the left.
There’s no room on the left for even the mildest
criticisms of anti-Semitism from the left.
Like Starbucks, the ADL will have to choose between
fighting anti-Semitism and pandering to the left. And, like Starbucks, it is
likely to drop anti-Semitism as the price of admission for staying on the
left.
Starbucks will go on touting its commitment to fighting
racism even as it colludes with anti-Semitism. And the ADL will criticize
anti-Semitism from white nationalists, but not black nationalists, from the
right but not the left, and hope that the overpriced coffee chain will welcome
it back with some burnt coffee.
Because there’s no price to pay for anti-Semitism,
but there is a bitter price for fighting anti-Semitism.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
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