Starbucks will close 8,000 stores on May 29 to conduct ‘racial bias training’, and one of the trainers will be . . . Eric Holder

They’re actually calling it “unconscious racial bias training,” which is supposed to mean you’re being a racist but you don’t realize it and don’t mean to. I’ve been through these kinds of things before. They try to show you that you really have this deep-seated racism regardless of whether you intend to, and attempt to demonstrate that all kinds of subtle, seemingly innocuous, things you do are the proof of it. Who better to convince you of that than the guy who covered up the gun-running scandal of Fast and Furious?

“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.

I’ve asked this question before, but it’s worth asking again: Is racism a uniquely heinous offense against humanity, such that it needs to be treated as beyond the pale and outside the acceptable bounds of civilized society? Or is it so common that basically everyone is guilty of it? Because it can’t be both. If racism is an attitude of extremist cranks on the fringes of society, then the vast majority of us who don’t embrace racism can isolate the cranks and deny them the ability to impact society in accordance with their misguided, evil racist notions.

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But if racism is more or less in everyone’s hearts, and in fact that includes a great many people who don’t really overtly hate minorities and don’t mean anyone any harm, then how can it be treated as a fringe, evil belief? It’s one or the other. What the left wants to do is treat it like the existential threat the former scenario suggests, but nevertheless presume just about everyone in the country to be in on it. That doesn’t work. You do have to hand it to Starbucks on this score, however: Have you ever seen a bigger overreaction to an isolated incident? One employee loses who doesn’t know how to manage a fairly innocuous situation ends up calling in the police, and the next thing you know 8,000 stores are closing for the day. Granted, this situation is tailor-made for activists who want to turn this one employee’s poor judgment into a global “Starbucks is racist” narrative, but is anyone surprised that Starbucks is essentially conceding the point with the way it’s reacting? By the way, if Kevin Johnson was any kind of man, his public statement would have included a complete exoneration of the Philadelphia police, who did the only thing they could in response to the call they received. But if Johnson exonerated the police, he probably would anger the very activists he’s trying to appease, so that was never going to happen. We live in absurd times.