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Starbucks Coffee On New York State Thruway

Source: Robert Nickelsberg / Getty

The pressure was on for Starbucks to do something in response to the incident last week where two Black patrons were asked to leave a Philadelphia location and were promptly arrested by police. With outrage and calls for boycotts high and low, the company will temporarily shut down 8,000 of its stores for racial bias training sessions nationwide.

CNN Money writes:

The racial bias training will be provided on May 29 to about 175,000 workers.

“I’ve spent the last few days in Philadelphia with my leadership team listening to the community, learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it,” Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in a statement.

“While this is not limited to Starbucks, we’re committed to being a part of the solution,” he said. “Closing our stores for racial bias training is just one step in a journey that requires dedication from every level of our company and partnerships in our local communities.”

Starbucks says the training will be developed with guidance from experts including former Attorney General Eric Holder.

Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, will also help design the program, as will executives from the Equal Justice Initiative and Demos, the progressive think tank.

Johnson met with the two men on Monday in Philadelphia as part of the company’s epic damage control roll out. It was also confirmed that on Monday that the manager who made the call to police was fired.

So is the boycott still or nah? Is this enough? Sound off in the comments section.

Photo: Getty