Racial Controversy Behind Black Olives

An Albuquerque Italian Restaurant decided to make some profit from the national tragedy.

The new billboard displayed at the entrance of Paisano’s Italian Restaurant in New Mexico saying “Black Olives Matter, Try Our Tapenade” caused serious backlash in view of recent police killings of African-Americans and resulting protests around the country.

The owner of the restaurant, Rick Camuglia, found nothing offensive in his strange choice of a joke.

“We put up what we thought was a cute play on words, which we do commonly here at the restaurant,” he commented.

No sooner had he placed the photo of the sign on his Facebook page, than his costumers and even sympathetic people from other countries rushed to express their frustration and disagreement.

One of the replies to his post stated:

“As a woman of color I find your posting offensive and in very bad taste. You simply wish to rub salt in an ugly festering wound which evil minded people refuse to allow to heal.”

Some of the commenters even wished Camuglia lost his business.

Despite the fact that the idea also had some supporters, who showed understanding of the gruesome sarcasm and even increased the income of Paisano’s buying double black olives as a sign of weird solidarity, the owner of the restaurant made the reasonable decision to remove what the Albuquerque branch of the NAACP called an ‘offensive marketing idea.’

Whatever message the billboard was intended to send, it was not the one we need now. The critical situation with the race in the country and countless deaths of innocent Black men must not make anyone smile, because until the problem is taken with all necessary seriousness, no worthy solution can be found.

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