Rapper T.I. has joined in calls for a boycott of Starbucks after two black men were arrested at one of the coffee giant’s Philadelphia locations.
Speaking to TMZ, T.I. urged people not to patronize the famous coffee brand after footage showed two men being arrested despite claiming they did nothing wrong.
“We should preserve our right to stop spending our money at places that don’t respect us equally,” the Atlanta-based rapper-actor said. “Until they’ve made some progressive steps to let us know how they plan on rectifying the situation, I don’t see no other answer.”
“If there’s one thing that America has shown us, there’s only two ways that you can get their attention— the loss of life and the loss of finances,” T.I. continued. “It’s just too much that’s been left undone when it comes to us being treated equally and fairly in this country.”
The arrest last week sparked outrage across social media, with many calling for a boycott of the Seattle-based coffee chain over the incident and the rise of the hashtag #BoycottStarbucks on Twitter.
Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson has since apologized over the incident, and called for “unconscious bias” over the incident, adding that, “what happened to those two gentlemen was wrong.”
“My responsibility is to look not only to that individual but look more broadly at the circumstances that set that up just to ensure that never happens again,” Johnson said in an interview on Good Morning America.
Meanwhile, T.I. has increasingly let his feelings fly on issues such as race and politics. Last year, he described President Donald Trump as the “poster child, for white supremacy,” and recently argued that repealing of the Second Amendment would allow the government to enslave Americans.
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