Owners of a restaurant in Deming, New Mexico who put up a hand painted “blame China” sign are defending themselves against a backlash.
Newsweek reports that Robert and Kimberly Yacone plastered the large sign on its eatery to blame the Asian country for a temporary closure of their restaurant due to a lack of employees.
“We blame the COVID-19 situation on the communist Chinese government and along with it the government giving excessive benefits to the non-employed to sit at home without having to even document looking for a job,” Kimberly told Newsweek.
Reviewers of Forghedaboudit Southwest Italian on Yelp called the sign racist.
“Glad they showed their true colors upfront with a racist a$$ sign so I don’t even need to bother to proceed further with this establishment,” wrote one reviewer. “My coworkers said their food is bland and tasteless anyways, glad I didn’t waste any time or money.”
“This Trump supporting, racist establishment is NOT worth your time nor money,” said another. “They don’t pay their workers a living wage which is the true reason they can’t find anyone to work for them. The owner is a clear, unequivocal, unabashed racist. Don’t blame others for your failure. Garbage owners, garbage business.”
“Totally would have loved to come in if they didn’t put that racist sign out front. #stopasianhate,” wrote a third.
The ACLU agrees.
“We’ve seen how signs like this inspire hate and violence against the Asian community. Instead of contributing to these kinds of divisions in our country, we should be pulling together to defeat the virus,” the group told Today.
The Yacones say their problem is not with Chinese or Asian Americans, but communist China. They seem to be enjoying the controversy and have posted coverage of the controversy on their Facebook page.
They also say that business has been great at a second location that remains open.
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I, too blame China. I believe it was a biological attempt to take over the US and other countries. I do not believe this was an “accident.”