Tamika Mallory, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, and bete noir of the Israel Lobby, has called out Starbucks for engaging the ADL to run the racial sensitivity training which the company is rolling out for its 8,000 stores next week.
The unprecedented development in the chain’s corporate history follows an ugly racial incident in one of its Philadelphia stores, when a manager refused to permit two Black customers to use the restroom unless they ordered food or drink. After the men sat down, the manager told them they had to leave the store unless they agreed to order. Shortly after this interchange, the manager called the police and the two were arrested for trespassing. As they were being led away in handcuffs, a white real estate agent who had set up the meeting with them, entered and protested to the police regarding their treatment.
In the aftermath of this, a maelstrom of horrendous PR has swamped Starbucks, normally a laid-back, tolerant corporate presence. Black community activists have commandeered the store and refused to permit the employees to do business. The company faces a perfect storm of justified public indignation.
When Starbucks faces such a crisis it calls in founder, Howard Schultz, to save the day. He did this a few years ago when the company was losing direction and stores sales were beginning to decline. At that time, he also ordered the closing of all stores and a chain-wide retraining day. That seems to have lifted the entire company from the doldrums.
While Schultz may be a charismatic corporate leader, he comes from the same corporatist mold as many of the white male CEOs of America. As a Jew, whenever he thinks of bias or racism the first organization he thinks of is the ADL. If Schultz thought a bit more deeply, he would realize that Starbucks must address the anger of the nation’s Black community, not his own pre-conceived notions of what those problems might be. Approaching the ADL to conduct these training sessions shows Schultz’s own prejudices.
No one in the Black community knows the ADL. They know the NAACP. They know Al Sharpton. They know Black Lives Matter. But the ADL? Nah. That’s a bunch of white dudes who hobnob with the rest of the community’s corporate elite. Now, if you want to sensitize Blacks to anti-Semitism, you might call on the ADL. But that’s not what Starbucks wants to do. So why is it turning to the ADL?
It’s a tone-deaf decision. The ADL is much better known as a champion of the Israel Lobby and an enforcer when it comes to punishing anti-Israel speech. It’s known for labeling progressive Jews as anti-Israel and worse; or for calling BDS an attempt to destroy Israel. But fighting racism? Perhaps at one time in its history it was devoted to fighting bias not just against Jews, but against all Americans. But it’s not any more.
This San Francisco rabbi exemplifies what occurs when American Jewish leaders try to tell Black-Americans how to pursue their interests:
Look I don’t agree with everything the ADL stands for, I sometimes have different views, but I really believe if we are going to solve this tremendous problem affecting people of color in our country that we have to be a broad coalition and be willing to work together across some differences,” said Rodich.
Why is a rabbi of San Francisco’s wealthiest temple telling Black folk how to solve their “problems” (his term)? Why doesn’t he consult with Black leaders before deciding what’s best for them?
The ADL has also put itself out there as an arbiter of anti-bias training for local police forces. In particular, it’s consulted about educating police officers about Islamophobia and offering greater sensitivity to local Muslim communities. It’s even offered the sessions on keeping Muslims safe. A number of Muslim organizations have protested this phenomenon. Asking the ADL to teach people to fight Islamophobia is a little like hiring the Trump Organization to train corporate executives about financial transparency.
Further, the ADL runs a series of national junkets for local police chiefs in Israel in which they introduce them to the tactics, protocols and systems used by Israel’s anti-terror forces to suppress the Palestinian community. In Ferguson, where the BLM began, its police deployed skunk cannons, armored vehicles, and other equipment similar to those used by Israel forces to quell civil protest. The ADL is helping militarize policing in the U.S., using Israel as its model. Recently, the Durham (NC) city council voted to discontinue the participation of its own police department in such programs.
Howard Schultz should stop reading the ADL’s own press releases and read what the rest of America thinks of some of the ADL’s initiatives and their impact on the Black community.
“No one in the Black community knows the ADL.”
The training isn’t meant for the Black community, it’s meant for Starbucks managers,
And what difference should it make who conducts the sensitivity training, so long as it works.
The ADL partners with local Muslim groups in order to keep Muslims safe, and that’s a bad thing?
@Frank:it can’t work because white folk like you can’t teach people how to respect black folk. Blacks should be doing that.
@Frank. You have obviously never seen…or chosen to see, the ADL promote hate and fear against Muslims. If once in a while, they toss us Muslims a conciliatory bone by supporting us, it does NOT mean the ADL has changed its spots. They still love to promote hate against us.
I remember the early 90’s when the ADL was caught working with South African intelligence to spy on anti-apartheid campaigner Chris Hani during his American tour ( and thousands of American citizens) Hani was murdered a few days after returning home. The ADL spy was also involved in the murder of an American radio host,Alex Odeh. He fled to Israel and cannot be extradited. The ADL settled the spying on Americans case with money after failing to get the case dismissed. The ADL are not an anti-racist organization, au contraire
and have not been for decades.
https://www.wrmea.org/1993-june/it-s-now-the-adl-spy-case.html
@ Paul: I think you’re confusing the ADL and JDL. The JDL murdered Alex Odeh, not the ADL.
Yes, I see i conflated the 2 cases. Getting old
So what is Israel teaching law enforcement commanders at these ADL sponsored seminars?
“The program enables American law enforcement commanders to benefit from Israel’s counter-terrorism experience.
Seminar topics include: preventing and responding to suicide bombings and terrorist attacks; the evolution of terrorist operations and tactics; leadership in a time of terror; intelligence gathering and information-sharing; balancing the fight against crime and terrorism; and the use of technology in fighting terror, among other subjects.”
What do any of these topics have to do with Ferguson, much less, the Black community?
Asking Israel for advice on fighting terrorism, is like asking MacDonald’s for advice on fighting obesity.
@Frank: nice try buddy. But a man who believes everything he reads from the likes of the ADL or IDF is a fool. Now go .out and read credible sources who will offer you an accurate picture of what these seminars are sbout.
Do you think it’s an accident that when these PDs come back from Israel they begin ordering the skunk cannons, military grade gear and palantir cyber hacking tools? No.of course it isn’t. Israel tours by the ADL encourage the militarization of policing and the notion of criminalizing race, and racial profiling. All because thst’s what isrsefl irsrlf does.
Hello again, Richard.
Richard, I did as you asked and read ‘credible sources’, like Mondoweiss and JVP, so
I read Allison Degar’s article in Mondoweiss, and, she really doesn’t ‘dish the dirt’.
She even admits that, ‘A number of former participants have praised the seminar for the focus on anti-terrorism tactics and border security.’
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/09/training-reddit-script/
I found on Mondoweiss this detailed account written by a law enforcement officer who made a ‘unity trip’.http://www.policemag.com/channel/patrol/articles/2017/05/the-police-unity-tour-of-israel.aspx
Seems innocuous enough.
I watched the JVP powerpoint presentation, ‘Deadly Exchange, and read the ADL’s intinery for the 2016 seminar in Israel.
https://deadlyexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/ADL-Itinerary-for-2016-Law-Enforcement-Trip-to-Israel.pdf
I also read what JVP quotes the participants as having said.
https://deadlyexchange.org/what-do-participants-say/
I read Max Blumenthal’s piece, where he quotes the well-respected Washington, DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier, who was junketed to Israel by JINSA. “I was with the bomb units and the SWAT team and all of those high profile specialized [Israeli] units and I learned a tremendous amount,” Lanier reflected. “I took 82 pages of notes while I was there which I later brought back and used to formulate a lot of what I later used to create and formulate the Homeland Security terrorism bureau in the DC Metropolitan Police department.”
Was Chief Lanier’s experience in Israel a bad thing for the citizens of Washington, DC? How so?
I don’t see the basis for your claim that, “PDs come back from Israel they begin ordering the skunk cannons, military grade gear and palantir cyber hacking tools”.
Can you please point me in the right direction so I can learn more about this.
@ Frank: That was your last comment in this thread.
In short, yes counter terror junkets are a terrible idea. The U.S. has all the expertise it needs in terms of training police to deal with these threats. And if we want to learn anything from foreigners we should travel to other western democratic countries which respect (or should respect) the very values which Israel discredits in its own fight against so-called Palestinian terror.
How is it that in four or five progressive accounts of these junkets you managed to cherry pick the only positive descriptions of the program without mentioning the overwhelming denunciations of it in all the rest of these accounts?? Why would that be?
You’re trying to be a good hasbarist, Frank. But by rejecting any accomodation to your opponents’ point of view you discredit yourself. I think you still need the advanced hasbara course. Especially if you want to earn that degree in Propagada Studies.
@ Frank ADLs “Training” trips are paid for by Dept of Fatherland Security and local Police departments, they are hardly “junkets”. While in Israel, the Police, Politicians and military are steeped in how “poor little Israel” is in a state of existential battle with Terrorists” (read ‘Muslims’) and by the time these gullible fools return, they are convinced Muslims and “Islam pose the greatest threat to the US and to the West” (language in many training pamphlets produced by the Police and FBI here).
Hi Pen,
I don’t believe one trip to Israel, post 9/11, is enough to convince a law enforcement official that Muslims and Islam pose the ‘greatest threat to the US’.
Have you read any of the literature, provided by Israel to the attendees? How do you know what Israel tell them?
United States law enforcement doesn’t fly it’s members to Israel for the warm weather and fresh vegetables, they come to learn how to combat terrorism, which BTW, doesn’t have a face; White Christians, like Timothy McVeigh, are as lethal as any other terrorists. A trained first responder’ to a terrorist attack isn’t concerned with who the terrorist is. A ‘first responder’ is concerned with treating victims and securing the crime scene.
Pen. Which country is more successful at fighting terrorism, Israel, or say, Pakistan? If your staff needed hands-on training in order to learn how to fight terrorism, which country would you send you staff to in order to learn?