The recording of the 911 call that led to the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks has been released.
On the call, which was posted via the Philadelphia Police Department's YouTube page, a female caller can be heard saying, “Hi, I have two gentlemen in my cafe who are refusing to make a purchase or leave.”
The operator said she would send police. Three minutes later, another dispatcher said a “group of males” was “refusing to leave.”
"A group of males" sounds a lot more threatening than two gentlemen.
Eyewitnesses have repeatedly said that the men did nothing wrong. However, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross took to Facebook to give a contradictory statement on the incident, alluding that the men were being disrespectful to the Starbucks manager and police officers.
Since then, Starbucks has vowed to close its 8,000 U.S. stores for racial bias training. While that's a nice gesture, it's unclear how it will change deeply-rooted racism.
On Tuesday's episode of "The Daily Show," host Trevor Noah offered a few ideas on revamping policing.
His idea? Hire a black dispatcher.
He suggested that with a black dispatcher, it's easier to gauge if something is truly an emergency or simply white paranoia. In the clip, we see Dulce Sloan as 911’s designated black dispatcher, answering calls from white people concerned about black civilians. Most of the calls end with, "girl, bye."