The Starbucks to Jailhouse Pipeline

All of these things together — dirty schools and ineffective education for Black children; massive under-employment and unemployment for Black people; hyper-incarceration through the school house to jail house pipeline (and now the Starbucks to jail house pipeline) — contribute to the rapid social and economic demise of Black people in America.

American wealth was produced off the backs of and lives of Black slaves. That wealth was passed down, directly or indirectly, to almost all White families today. We do not want White America to feel guilty, we want White America to understand that their advantage and their privilege of today is related to Black pain, sorrow, exploitation and death of yesterday. We are not asking for guilt, just constructive engagement in righting this historical wrong and its evil financial manifestations today.

Corporate America owes Black America!!! Today it is Starbucks. Tomorrow Walgreens, General Motors, United Airlines, Target, Bank of America, Coca Cola, Aramark, Facebook, Amazon, Silicon Valley and so on. America’s wealth and success today can be directly or indirectly connected to the enslavement and destruction of Black Americans in the past. And in so many ways, much of it is still happening today.  

Black Americans systematically learn less, earn less, save less, dream less, are sick faster, die more, are incarcerated more, and are under-employed and unemployed more than any other group in America. This is no accident nor is there any structural plan for this to be different, ever.

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