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On Saturday McDonald’s apologized for a derogatory sign posted at one of his China restaurants. A McDonald’s restaurant in Guangzhou, China’s southwestern port city, posted a laminated sign that reads, “Notice: We have been told that black people are not allowed to enter the restaurant. “For the sake of your safety, actively notify the local police of medical exclusion, please accept the inconvenience caused,” the sign instructed black patrons. Since then, McDonald’s has removed the sign, closed the location and released a statement saying the sign was “not reflective of our inclusive values.”
Again, for those who still doubt that Black people and particularly #AfricansinChina are being targeted we feel it is our duty to share this. A sign at a @McDonalds restaurant seems to make this perfectly clear pic.twitter.com/FaveKrdQHi
— Black Livity China (@BlackLivityCN) April 11, 2020
“McDonald’s China apologizes to the person and our clients,” said Saturday the spokeswoman for McDonald, Regina Hui. Since then, McDonald’s has vowed to use the sign incident to “further inform managers and workers about our principles, which involves respecting all members of the communities we work in.”
Local lawmakers, at the same time, have called for further monitoring of immigrants, wary of a resurgence in COVID-19 incidents. Guangzhou has the largest African population in China, with around 4,500 people. During the past two weeks, African residents report they have endured forced evictions, hotel rejections, involuntary testing without results and sequestration into two-week long quarantines even though they test negative for the virus, they have not recently traveled or had no interaction with any persons known to have been contaminated with COVID-19.
Last month, China barred all foreigners from entering the country since, according to The Post, about 90 percent of new cases of coronavirus had come from Chinese people returning from Europe, the United States and the Middle East. “China and African countries have always helped each other since the start of the coronavirus outbreak and have always fought against the virus together,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Thursday. “I would like to emphasize that the Chinese government views all foreigners fairly in China, condemns any segregated practices aimed at particular groups of people and has zero tolerance for discriminatory words and acts”