Independent - UK

Pastor calls for boycott of Starbucks after police killing

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles

21 June 2001

Like so many urban conflicts in America, it began with a black man being shot dead by the police. Aaron Roberts, 37, was on the run from a prison release programme when his car was flagged down by two patrol officers near his home in the Central district of Seattle late last month.

According to the police, Roberts tried to speed away ­ dragging one of the officers along for about 150ft ­ before being stopped by a bullet. But according to Seattle's African-American activist community, he was the victim of racial prejudice and police brutality.

The Reverend Robert Jeffrey, the pastor at the Central district's New Hope Baptist Church, decided ordinary protest was not enough. Drastic action was required. His solution was to boycott Starbucks. It was an eccentric battle-cry, to say the least.

Even Starbucks' most ardent critics had to admit the Seattle-based coffee chain had absolutely nothing to do with the Roberts shooting. Starbucks reacted to the boycott with a mixture of indignation and downright perplexity.

"Since our votes are not getting us what we need, we need to see if where we spend our money can," Mr Jeffrey told the congregation at Roberts' funeral. Corporate America was largely responsible for keeping black people down, he argued, and so it had to be corporate America that brought about the changes in society as a whole. He acknowledged that boycotting Starbucks was a more effective publicity stunt than rallies and vigils.

Despite media coverage in Seattle and beyond, it hasn't generated a lot of sympathy. In fact, members of his own congregation have questioned the wisdom of the campaign.

Starbucks is one of the few big businesses to have a presence in the Central district. It sponsors scholarships for African-Americans at a nearby private school, and gives money to socially progressive organisations dedicated to improving poorer neighbourhoods and eliminating racial prejudice.

Mr Jeffrey's tactic strikes a chord in a city where the easy-money world of the internet generation, of which Starbucks is a part, remains out of reach for many people in neighbourhoods such as Central. The complaint of countless anti-globalisation protesters in Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organisation summit was that powerful chains stifled economic opportunities locally and created deep social divisions between the ruling corporate class and their essentially expendable workforce.

In his 15 years in Seattle, Mr Jeffrey has organised boycotts against the Safeway supermarket chain and Nordstrom, a department store. Each February he has inspired the Black Dollar Days Task Force, a week-long campaign to encourage consumers to patronise black-owned businesses.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2001

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No good deeds should go unpunished.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2001