The Philip DeFranco Show - “STARBUCKS IS RACIST AGAINST WHITE PEOPLE” The Truth About My Transformation & Today’s News 6.15.23

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Go to https://shopbeam.com/defranco  and use code DEFRANCO to get 35% off your first month’s subscription and 20% off all your following orders. You can pause or cancel any time so there's no risk!https://beautifulbastard.com/ June Beautiful Bastard Drop Live Now! Catch up on the last PDS: ​https://youtu.be/RieDjQOx694 Catch up on our Sunday show: https://youtu.be/j4NqtjhX9Q8 Check out Zaid’s latest FSTN: https://youtu.be/hNXNUwJ7dW0 –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 0:00 - Health Transformation Updates 02:19 - White Ex-Starbucks Manager Wins $25M Settlement Over Racial Discrimination 04:05 - Six Officers in Mississippi Accused of Turning off Body Cams and Torturing Black Men  05:32 - New Efforts Aim to Promote Tourism at Destroyed Bamiyan Buddha Statues 08:28 - Sponsored by Beam 09:11 - Twitter in Trouble Over Rent Payments, Copyright Infringement, and Deepfakes 13:31 - Supreme Court Upholds Native American Adoption Law  ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxx Enright, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #BellaPoarch #Starbucks ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards! Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show, your daily dive into the news, which we have a lot to talk about today, so buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. Starting, actually, with a bit of non-news, but I've gotten a lot of questions about it. Yesterday, I posted my bi-monthly health and fitness update to, you know, seek approval from strangers to fill that empty hole in my heart. Well, 98% of the responses were very, very positive. There were a number of questions, so let me just clear things up. I'm still very much a work in progress, but, uh but one, this was not an overnight thing. In my experience, crash dieting and things like that just don't work. Or rather they work, but then you yo-yo back.

This is so far, I think the result of about a year of work. I'm bad with time, but it was something I started taking seriously last year after I had that whole bout with diverticulosis that just wouldn't stop. I have also never taken Ozempic. Also understand that's not me speaking out against it. I just am not taking it. I also do not have a personal trainer. I just use an app that I won't mention by name because they're not paying for this episode. You know, all the change you've slowly seen over the past year, it's just, you know, doing more, eating better. It's really it. Also, I'm not saying it in that way that some people do where they're like, it's so fucking simple. Just do it. Just do it. Those two simple things are sometimes so hard to do. If there is one bit of advice that I can give, it's more of just like a mental thing.

While understandably, vanity is this fucking noise in our head that we can't ever like fully get out. The best thing that I've done is kind of just pivot my outlook on this. I don't go into this thinking, this is what I want my body to look like. I think of this as, this is what I want my body to be able to do. When I was struggling with all my health issues last year, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't run with my kids, jump on the trampoline. I couldn't lift them up. It kind of just gave me the shock of like, you're looking at what your future is going to be if you don't take care of yourself. And the last thing that I'll say here is like where I am

now, even though it's not my, like the final, there's no final place, but you know, my main goal, it is a result of so many failed day one, day 10, day 30s. And we as human beings, we're not what we say we are, what we do, but more importantly, we are how we bounce back from failures. And please know you have that in you. I'm a fucking idiot. I'm not special, whether it be this or almost every aspect of my life. I am the result of failure after failure until I just happen not to anymore. Well, then also understanding there could be future stumbles. Hey, hopefully that answers some of the questions. Maybe it inspires you. And hey, while I have you emotionally vulnerable and connected to me, just a reminder. I'm sorry, I have no idea where to put this in the show. This is your last reminder that we just did a drop over at beautifulbastard.com. Maybe get

something as a gift for Father's Day or you know what? Support the daddy in you. Get a little something for yourself just to click away. I feel dirty. And then Starbucks is racist against white people. Also, I feel like I need to clarify, this is not my new Thursday segment, Phil's out of nowhere racially charged opinion, but rather that is what a court just ruled. And ironically enough, this story, this news, it begins with the company allegedly being racist toward black people. Because back in 2018, two black men entered a Starbucks in Philadelphia with one of them asking to use the restroom. But with neither of them making a purchase, a couple of minutes later, the manager who was white wouldn't let them use the restroom, instead calling 911 and complaining that they wouldn't leave.

Hi, I have two gentlemen in my cafe that are refusing to make a purchase or leave. Alright, please help me out as soon as possible. Thank you. And so the cops arrived and they actually arrested both men. It was all caught on video, that video going viral, provoking accusations of racism. With the police then quickly dropping the charges against the men that night, but the outrage against Starbucks continued, leading to days of protests at the location and a worsening PR crisis for the company. So we saw in response Shannon Phillips, the regional director in Philly, who was also white, saying her superiors ordered her to suspend the store's manager over discriminatory complaints. But she believed the complaints were false and disagreed with the move, and so not long afterwards, Starbucks fired her.

But they're claiming that Starbucks didn't give any reason other than telling her the situation is not recoverable. So Phillips sued the company, alleging that it retaliated against her and the other white employee to convince the public it had properly dealt with the incident. Now the massive news around the situation this week is that a federal jury decided there was sufficient evidence that race was a factor in her termination. And so they awarded her $25 million in damages. Which makes this a standout situation for two reasons. One, we saw a successful discrimination suit for a white person that resulted in tens of millions of dollars. But also, that highlights the black man at the center of this whole story. They got fucking arrested. For what? And they got almost nothing for themselves out of the of dollars. But also, that highlights the black man at the center of this whole story. They got fucking arrested for what?

And they got almost nothing for themselves out of the ordeal. Instead, taking a symbolic settlement for $1 each from the city along with a commitment to fund a $200,000 program for young entrepreneurs. As well as settling with Starbucks itself on the agreement that it would hold racial bias training at over 8,000 stores and open its bathrooms to everyone.

But now with all that said, I gotta know from you, what are your thoughts on this situation? Let me know in those comments down below. And then, if even part of the allegations in this lawsuit are true, this would be one of the most horrific cases of police brutality in recent memory. The way the story goes is this all happened back in January, when police got a report of drug activity at a home in Mississippi. So six white sheriff's deputies, they head on over there,

but apparently that is where the normal police procedure ends. Because according to the lawsuit, they all turned off their body cameras, and then, despite not having a search warrant, they forced their way inside. And inside they found Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, two black men who weren't expecting to have the worst night of their lives. With the deputies allegedly handcuffing them, beating them, tasing them, calling them racial slurs. Also allegedly waterboarding them, throwing eggs at them, and attempting to sexually assault them with a sex toy. And as if that wasn't enough, one officer allegedly shot Jenkins in the mouth. With the lawsuit then alleging that Jenkins stumbled out of the door and fell, and about 20

minutes passed, in which time the deputies would not assist him in any way. In court documents stating that Jenkins suffered permanent nerve damage and numbness on one side of his face, with his whole sadistic torture session allegedly lasting two hours. But as far as now, the men are suing the county and all six deputies involved. This is notably following both state and federal investigations into the sheriff's office. Though as far as what the police report says happened, a redacted version claims the deputy shot Jenkins after he displayed a gun toward them. Though notably, the lawsuit states neither Jenkins nor Parker possessed or displayed a weapon during the encounter. Additionally, in the police report, it said that there were two bags of what appeared to

be meth being found, but then not describing the incident any further. With all that said, for now, we're gonna have to wait to see the outcome of these investigations. But if what's being alleged is true, these six aren't worthy of the air they're breathing. They need to have a quick and powerful conversation with the end of a bat. But for now, we're gonna have to wait to see how all this plays out. And then, if you're looking for a fun, new, relaxing vacation spot this summer, I have one for you, and it is Taliban-run Afghanistan. For some 1,500 years, Afghanistan was home to the Bamiyan Buddhas, a pair of 6th century giant statues carved into a cliff. For these being one of the world's oldest and most valued cultural sites,

so it drew tourists from all around the globe. But then, in 2001, six months before 9-11, the Taliban declared the Buddhas false gods, and they blew these things up with anti-aircraft guns and explosives. An act that not only shocked the rest of the world, which had begged them not to touch the statues, it cemented the Taliban's reputation as ruthless, uncompromising extremists. And so we fast forward to now, with an economy crumbling under international sanctions, drought, 20 straight years of war,

and as we covered recently, the crackdown on poppy production, the Taliban is desperate for tax revenue. So desperate, in fact, it's feeling a bit of regret about blowing up those Buddhas, and now it's trying to attract tourists to that site. With a ticket office at the foot of one of those figures charging Afghans 58 cents and foreigners $3.45 to see the remains. Where I guess you get to just stare at the massive holes of where they once were, as well as there being a museum displaying other cultural artifacts, local shops,

selling things like rugs and dresses imprinted with the Buddhas and a souvenir market in the works. There's also a vendor selling ice cream and nearby you can visit a national park with clear blue lakes and petal powered swan boats for rent. They also have a hotel welcoming guests and a lobby adorned with paintings of the statues before they were destroyed. And in a jaw-dropping pivot that just confirms that money is the only thing that matters, you have the Taliban's

deputy culture minister saying, Bamiyan and the Buddhas in particular are of great importance to our government just as they are to the world. And adding that more than a thousand guards have been assigned to protect cultural heritage across Afghanistan, restricting access and overseeing ticket sales. And so all of this is kind of this very transparent PR move by the Taliban to try to present itself as a more pragmatic regime than the one that ruled in 1996 to 2001. Right over the past year or two, we've seen things that were previously unthinkable from these fundamentalists, like senior Taliban officials at the National Museum in the capital for the inauguration of a section dedicated to Buddhist artifacts, or the information and culture minister proudly displaying a map of UNESCO World

Heritage sites at his office. With that, outside observers are naturally skeptical of this sudden pivot. And they also worry about the cultural sites outside Bamiyan province, like important synagogues and Hindu artifacts. With one French archaeologist, for example, saying satellite imagery of northern Afghanistan shows signs of large-scale excavations, which he says may suggest economically desperate Afghans are trying to dig up and sell artifacts. But I guess with all that, it does beg the question of who the fuck is visiting Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as a vacation? Like, I understand why they want the business, right? There have been reports from Bamiyan that business has dried up since the Taliban took over. You also have the government claiming 200,000 registered tourists, most of them

Afghans, visited the province last year. But also, apart from tourists, many archaeologists, nonprofits, and donors who left in 2021 refused to return because of the way the Taliban treats women. Also, the Taliban can put as many guards at these sites as they want, but it's not going to help anyone when people are scared of the Taliban. This is like saying, don't worry, you're safe at the drag show. We hired the proud boys to be the security outside. And at the end of the day, they can do all this PR, slap a new in front of Taliban, try to market themselves, but it's still the fucking Taliban. We're talking about an insane, brutal, violent regime that also barely sees women as people.

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Personally, I love an account on it. It helps me wind down from hectic and sometimes stressful days, fall asleep faster, and stay asleep. So just go to shopbeam.com slash DeFranco and use code DeFranco to get 35% off your first month's subscription. And then, owning Twitter seems like an absolute nightmare. Yes, you get to control the public square. There's a lot of power in that. You get to shape conversations and minds. But every story that comes out or leaks out about this place, it sounds like it's just a perpetual fire.

I mean, just today, the past few days, let's try and do a little breakdown. First up, you have both the Denver Business Journal and TechCrunch reporting that a judge in Boulder, Colorado has ordered Twitter to be evicted from its office there. Because according to court records seen by both outlets, it shows that Twitter has not paid its rent for at least three months.

But they're being reported that Twitter's supposed to be paying a monthly rent of around $27,000. And also in its research, TechCrunch said that it found a separate case where a cleaning company is seeking $93,504 in unpaid fees from the company. Though as many have noted, that news isn't really that surprising. Because Twitter has already been sued for the same exact shit in multiple other office locations. Back in January, Twitter was hit with two back-to-back lawsuits for not paying its rent in London and even at its literal headquarters in San Francisco.

With a San Fran suit claiming that Twitter owed its landlord more than $6.7 million for two months of rent just for that office. And even previously it was reported that the company had been kicked out of its Singapore office for the same reason. But as these latest reports come out, it's also facing a litany of other lawsuits for not paying various vendors, consultants, former executives, and other firms that say they're collectively owed millions of dollars. Also, we just learned today that Twitter has been slapped with a $250 million lawsuit from a group of 17 major music publishers for massive copyright infringement, with a suit which includes some of the largest publishers in the world accusing Twitter of continually violating copyright law

by letting users post music on the site without permission, and saying despite the fact that the publishers have informed Twitter of hundreds of thousands of these violations, they claim that Twitter, quote, has repeatedly failed to take the most basic step of expeditiously removing or disabling access to the flagged content.

But also, they say it goes beyond just failure. The suit alleges that Twitter has continued to assist known repeat infringers with their infringement, and they're also arguing that this is intentional on Twitter's part because allowing these violations drive more people to the platform, thus making the company more money. Explaining Twitter permits and encourages infringement, including of publishers' musical compositions, so that it can continue to reap huge profits from the availability of unlicensed music without paying the necessary licensing fees for it. And then going on to specifically list 1,700 infringed works. And asking that Twitter pay statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each of those songs. And with that,

a key thing is that the plaintiffs have pointed out that Twitter is the only major social media platform that has refused to pay licensing fees for the music on its platform. With YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook reportedly all having these kinds of licensing agreements. Agreements that can reportedly cost over $100 million a year. And while this issue did not start with Elon Musk, very significant, the New York Times had already previously reported that Twitter had actually been negotiating with some of the biggest publishers to reach a licensing deal,

but those talks stalled after Musk bought the company, which is why some, including the outlet, have connected that to Musk's so-called cost-cutting measures like skipping rent payments and avoiding paying bills to various vendors. Though also, I have to note that the language we're using here, kind of loose. Like if I walked into Walgreens

and I just grabbed a bunch of shit and I walked out, like that's not a cost-cutting measure, That's just theft. And again, there is no shortage to Twitter's problems because there's so many other things that we can talk about, but just, just condensing this to like the news from the last 24 hours. Twitter's also in the news right now because of this report that came from NBC that found that deepfake porn on some of the biggest stars on TikTok is absolutely thriving on Twitter, right? Not that it just exists, which people are aware of, but that it's able to grow and spread massively. And according to the report,

they did Twitter searches for the top three most followed women on TikTok, Addison Rae, Charli D'Amelio, and Bella Porch. NBC saying they found multiple examples of sexually explicit and sexually suggested deepfakes posted in a 24-hour period. But also importantly, other searches turned up tweets with deepfakes that have been posted weeks ago

and remained up despite Twitter's policies banning them. And when I say they're spreading, and when I'm saying this content's thriving, they reportedly found a deepfake of Addison Rae that had been viewed over 21 million times between the day it was posted, May 31st, and this Tuesday. And beyond that, the top replies linked to a longer sexually explicit version of that video. And then, reportedly after NBC said that it emailed Twitter requesting comment and linking nine accounts or posting pornographic deepfakes, while Twitter did suspend six of those accounts reportedly, some of the links, including a sexually explicit deepfake video with Porch's likeness

and multiple pornographic deepfake images of D'Amelio and her family, are still up. And as far as Twitter's response, so far it has not commented. Probably, I'm gonna guess, because Musk fired its comms team and set up an automated email that sends the poop emoji to anyone who emails the press account. Side note, that is not a joke. These are documented things that he has done because he is a man-child. And as far as the lack of or lackluster enforcement, you had NBC suggesting that could currently be a bigger issue because Musk also fired employees who would be in charge of that kind of thing, which, hey, that's

also the other side of cost cutting measures. You're seemingly saving money because you removed a cost, but there is an actual human cost to that as well, which can or could then add to your actual monetary costs. But hey, for now, that's where we are here. We're going to keep our eyes on Twitter and we'll stay close to it. You know, nothing like staying nice and toasty next to a dumpster fire. And then the Supreme Court just dropped a massive decision. In a 7-2 ruling today, the high court upheld a 1978 law that gives Native Americans preference in cases involving the adoption or fostering of Native American children, with a law in question being passed back then to help rectify the long and horrible history

of hundreds of thousands of Native American children being removed from their families and tribes by adoption agencies, with them then put in the care of white families who had no connection to their culture, and the basic argument there being that this law helps keep indigenous families together while preserving culture, tradition, and identity. But that law, intended to prevent Native kids from being taken away from their homes and placed with white families, really upset white families who wanted to take them away from their homes. With a white evangelical couple from Texas leading a group of non-Native parents in Republican states to file a lawsuit claiming that the 1978 law was unconstitutional because it discriminated on the basis of race. And claiming that it violated states' rights by imposing a federal mandate on areas regulated by states.

We are the tribes arguing that they operate as political entities so the law is a matter of tribal sovereignty and not a racial matter. Which notably is the very basis of tribal rights. So very key thing, getting rid of this law could totally upend basic principles of tribal governance, law, and policy. And what we ended up seeing in their decision was the Supreme Court ultimately ruling that the federal law does not tread on states' rights.

Though, very key thing here, the justices did not rule on the question of whether the law unconstitutionally discriminated on the basis of race, because the plaintiffs didn't have a legal standing to make their case. And that's where today's Daily D into the news is going to end. Of course, I'd love to hear from you in those comments down below on any of the stories that

stood out to you today. But as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces and I'll see you next time.