Whole Foods Partnered Up With Restaurant Named Yellow Fever & Twitter Reacted

Whole Foods has built up quite a name for itself as an organic, health food store, however, after partnering up with Asian restaurant ‘Yellow Fever’ (no, we’re not kidding, it’s actually named that) they’ve waded into controversy with many people outraged by the racist name.

Already ready for lunch? #YellowFeverEats has you covered with fresh, customized bowls at our brand-new #LongBeach365 location – now open! pic.twitter.com/GCoHiMwMUW

— 365byWholeFoods (@365byWholeFoods) 25 April 2018

ICYMI, yellow fever is commonly used in urban slang to refer to the fetishization of Asian women and contains many problematic sexual connotations which Whole Foods would have known if they had bothered to google it. The Korean owned chain maintains that they have been operating in LA for years without any criticism thus far, only attracted attention after the tie-up with Whole Foods.

Great name. Foresee no problems here, with the name.

— Arkansas Fred (@ArkansasFred) 25 April 2018

Great name. Foresee no problems here, with the name.

— Arkansas Fred (@ArkansasFred) 25 April 2018

While the term yellow is seen as a racist slur, even more disturbing is the fact that yellow fever is a deadly disease that attacks the liver and kidneys leading to the yellowing of the skin, so, also not really a great name for a restaurant.

it's shocking because this went through so many people to get made and no one spoke up. and even if an asian person says "I'm taking the word back" the term by def legit means "Asian fetish by a white person" or a bowel disease. why would you want that?

— Connieshin (@thatconnieshin) 27 April 2018

However, Co-Founder and chef Kelly Kim maintains that the name of her restaurant is “re-appropriating a term — taking ownership of something and defining it in our own way” in this interview with Next Shark. Unfortunately, while we understand the intention that Kim was going for, this perhaps wasn’t the best way to reclaim the term yellow. Well, they say hindsight is 20/20.