A Muslim Woman in United States received a Starbucks coffee mug with ISIS labeled on it in Minnesota Target Starbucks. She took to social media to rage the issue and filed a discrimination charge against Target.
When the world is still not over the Black Lives matter movement that has been going on around the world for the past month because of Police brutality in United States where a black man was killed we have yet another discriminatory incident. A new discrimination charge has been filed against tat Target Starbucks and the Barista responsible for the same.
Aishah the 19 year old Muslim girl went to one of the retail corporation of Target Starbucks to buy herself a drink; there she was labeled with ISIS on her mug. ISIS is the acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a terrorist group which is known for its violence and radical beliefs. Aishah is being represented by the Minnesota chapter of the Council n American-Islamic Relations also known as the CAIR-MN. The charge was filed on Monday to the Minnesota department of Human Rights on Monday.
Aishah who just mentioned her first name to the Barista who was serving her the drink, got ISIS labeled on the mug. She was seen wearing a Hijab, which is head scarf worn by Muslim woman all over the world. She mentioned in her lawsuit that she felt belittled and humiliated. She was overwhelmed by lot of emotions as ISIS is the word that shatters the Muslim reputation around the world. She addressed her belief saying that using these words on innocent people was and is never okay.
This happened on the 1st of July at a target Starbucks in St. Paul Midway Minnesota. Aishah went to the barista to order a drink and was wearing a face mask due to the coronavirus pandemic. the barista asked her name and she said it. Aishah said she asked her to repeat her several times and there is no way she could have heard Aishah as ISIS because it is a very common name.
Aishah also went upto the employee supervisor to complaint about the employee and she was dismissed and not heard. Her concerns were compensated with a new drink and a 25 dollar Starbucks gift card. Not just that she was also escorted from the premises by the security guards. She was also told that name misspells happen all the time and it is no big deal.
The employee at the Target Starbucks when questioned upon said that she did not hear the name correctly.
Aishah immediately filed a formal complaint to the retail corporation target and did not receive any response yet. The Target store did not even immediately response to the news channel also when asked about and later gave an Email statement that they strictly prohibit discrimination of any kind at their retail corporations and apologized for Aishah’s experience and also claimed to have apologized to Aishah when she made a formal complaint on the same. They also said it was not intentional but just a mistake by the employee and this could have been avoided with simple clarification.
Starbucks also declined to give any further comments on the incident. Starbucks spokesperson have said that as it is inside the Target only Target is responsible for all the actions and it is also completely run by the Target.
Jaylani Hussein who is the executive director of CAIR-MN is calling to fire the two Target Starbucks employees who are involved in this unfortunate incident and also mentioned that labeling a person ISIS just because they are Muslim is the highest level of Islam phobic statement.
By Deepika Agarwal
