Contrasting reactions to rising crime from Starbucks and McDonald’s highlight the greater risks minorities in dangerous neighborhoods face.
Last week, 23-year-old Matthew Webb died after getting shot in the neck at the Brooklyn McDonald’s where he worked, allegedly by the adult son of a customer enraged over cold French fries. Earlier this year, 19-year-old Burger King worker Krystal Bayron-Nieves was shot and killed at a Harlem Burger King, even as she complied with a robber’s demands. Yet neither of these fast-food giants is leaving the inner city. By contrast, Starbucks is closing locations across the country, including in Washington’s Union Station—not because any worker has been killed recently, thankfully, but because of rampant disorder. The different corporate reactions offer a parable for our times: poorer people stuck living and working in increasingly dangerous inner-city neighborhoods suffer far more than the affluent newcomers who can come and go at will. Unlike McDonald’s, Starbucks could afford to support progressive policies a few years back because it knew that leaving was an option if things got rough.
