There's a local restaurant in my neighborhood, started by a first-generation Vietnamese American. His family is wonderful, they do so much for the community, and they're always so nice.

During the heat from Fentanyl Floyd's OD, there was an instance at the restaurant where a group of African American women began to disobey COVID protocols. A server told them they had to comply or leave, and the women escalated to the point where they began spitting on the server.

At that point, other guests began yelling at them to knock it off and leave. Ultimately, they were kicked out of the restaurant. They said some pretty horrific things to the server, who flipped them the bird as they walked away.

These women took to social media and began a campaign to label the restaurant as racist. They said the restaurant kicked them out simply because they were black. Then, they activated hundreds of friends from out-of-state to brigade the social media profiles for the restaurant.

Each post they put up was met with a horribly crude comment, things like:

"RACIST ESTABLISHMENT. YOU NEED TO STOP POSTING & REMOVE YOURSELF AS A BUSINESS. GIVE YOUR SPACE YES YOUR PHYSICAL RESTAURANT, MONEY, PLATFORM, RESOURCES, ALL YOUR PRIVILEGE TO A BIPOC BUSINESS OWNER RIGHT NOW. IMMEDIATELY. POST THAT. SHOW US THOSE DAMN RECEIPTS."

I'm not making that up, that's a direct quote from one of their posts. Now imagine this by the hundreds on literally every social post.

The business did nothing wrong. It was a clear-cut instance of someone playing the race card after they acted out inappropriately. But Yelp would classify this business as racist in the wake of this.

This is going to backfire so poorly for so many businesses. The only silver lining might be that people will finally stop giving Yelp any sort of credibility and the platform implodes. Personally, I've never used Yelp. But I sure as hell ain't using it now.

One thing that helped the restaurant is the community came to their defense. So, remember to fight for those that need your help if it comes to that! Do your duty!