yelp

Yelp removed my original review of Mulligan's, the restaurant with a racist owner who sells t-shirts of Senator Obama portrayed as a curious george:

"Racism is not cute or funny.
Do not provide this 'person' with business.
Since controversy of this gravity is what this owner needs to sell business, what he sells can't possibly be good on its own merit."

Yelp's response:

"Hi Simon,

I'm writing to let you know about our decision to remove your review of Mulligans. Your review was flagged by the Yelp community, and our Customer Service team has determined that it falls outside our review guidelines: http://www.yelp.com/faq#great_review - specifically: Irrelevance. Reviews aren't the place for rants about your political ideologies or a business' advertisements.

It's not that we support racism or bigotry, however, we still need to enforce our review guidelines. As you can see, reviews such as create situations where listings are bombarded by reviews that have even less to do with this business than politics. While you may not agree with the political and socio-political beliefs of this business, the review section of this site is not the forum in which to pursue this agenda.

We review every situation with detail and care and take the removal of reviews very seriously.

Regards,
Roger
Yelp User Support
San Francisco, California"

It is striking that Yelp doesn't think it's users will change their habits based on the racist beliefs of the business owners. Also amazing is the fact that my review says nothing about the political stance of the owner but is solely about the racist t-shirts the owner of Mulligan's sells. In my opinion, everyone should be informed about whether or not the person making their sandwich is a racist.

My email reply:

"Pretty odd my review expresses no political ideologies, and that I assume other people (especially people of color such as myself) would care to know if their sandwich was being prepared by a racist.

Please review this with serious, detailed care: go fuck yourself, you racist pecker-head.

Regards,
Simon Trevino"

And here is my new review within their guidelines:

"If you find a pro-racist environment hostile, as I do, don't spend your money on the goods here.
Hostile environment, crappy, clueless owner. Their food and atmosphere is so bad they have to grab business by being openly racist."

I guess we'll have to see if that one lasts.