Tag: racism

Man, What a Stupid Commercial (#018)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Blowing the dust off this ‘ol category here . . . 

Good thing I don’t drink Hennessy, because this is the kind of shit that would make me stop if I did: some hokey campaign or promotion called “Original Odyssey” supposedly meant to feature Asian culture.  First episode, the one being pushed to the moon to help boost the awareness of it, starring two hafus, Henry Golding and Liv Lo.

Yeah, going real super Asian there, Hennessy.

Yes, it’s shitty to go all Asian-on-hafuAsian criticism because Asians in general don’t need any more bullshit piled on top of them, but this is more to criticize Hennessy for trying to do some sort of Asian awareness, but still being racist and superficial enough to only draft guys like Henry Golding to be their spokespeople.  The guy is about as Asian as Chinese food in America and has a fucking British accent.  His wife is half Italian, and between the two of them, they have the gene pool for a single Asian.

But then they go blathering on about just how Asian they are and pretending to make Singaporean rib soup, chasing it with some shitty spirits, and I’m rolling my eyes wondering on whether or not to brog about this or not.  But the frequency in which I keep getting these ads in social media, and the right circumstances hit, here we are, with me hating on a bullshit campaign intending to be for Asian awareness, but coming from a company that doesn’t have the courage to actually feature any real Asians.

It’s like that episode of King of the Hill where the Laotian country club that Khan keeps getting denied membership to, talk about a golf tournament they’ll have where the greatest Asian golfer of all time is slated to show up: Tiger Woods.  It really is kind of like that joke.

lol Alpharetta white people

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SMH: racists sue city of Alpharetta because they can’t display the Confederate battle flag at a Veterans Day parade, get shot down in court; however, due to the attention, the city opts to cancel the parade outright

My reaction to reading this story was the following line, said in the mocking southern white supremacist impression I’ve found myself doing an awful lot more than I used to since 2016: 

if I cain’t be racist at the parade, I don’t want there to be a parade at all.

That’s kind of the takeaway of this whole story.  Supposedly, the parade still happened, whether or not it was sanctioned by the city in the first place, I don’t have the care to dig and find out, but supposedly the Sons of Confederate Veterans did not participate or fly any Confederate battle flags during it.

Either way, Alpharetta is a super white suburb north of Atlanta, and I’m actually more surprised that the courts ruled in favor of outlawing the Confederate battle flag, given their demographics.  But Alpharetta is also pretty flush with new money which tends to lean towards the left, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned throughout history, money speaks louder than racism and political correctness, and by product of it, sometimes the right calls are occasionally made.

Ohio State sure loves to recruit quitters

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sauce: Ohio State linebacker seemingly retires in the middle of a game, over not being subbed in

Honestly, there’s not much for me to add to this story.  This is retroactively being written, so I’m having a hard time getting back in to the same head space in which I wanted to write about this in the first place.

I suppose to jotted down this note because I always love when there are stories about Ohio State fucking up in some capacity, because I think they’re one of the most overrated athletic programs in the country and I always relish in seeing them getting knocked down, even from within, with entitled uneducated athletic ringers who can’t spell “luck” or “fuck” on social media.

Or maybe it’s because the guy in question’s name is “K’Vaughn” which I’m not entire sure on whether it’s supposed to be pronounced “Kevin” or “Keh-Von” and really it’s just a low key dark humor of weird black names that this guy could be one of the actual players who participated in the Key & Peele East/West Bowl introductions.  

Regardless, lol at Ohio State for getting yet another ringer who quits the team when things aren’t going his way, as if K’Vaughn’s last name were Bosa.  Not that it really matters, because in spite of all the choking they do on an annual basis, they don’t seem to ever have any shortage of 4-and 5-star recruits wanting to go there, so K’Vaughn’s spot will likely be filled right up with someone just as good if not better, and perhaps a better speller on Twitter too.

Raymond Lee ≠ Randall Park

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Kevin Can Go F*** Himself – pretty good show.  Very creative execution, surprisingly deep plot.  Annie Murphy is still a snack, even as New England white trash.  Kind of feels like a show that should be on FX and not AMC, but whatever.  Probably because it has a very Wilfred-like feel and pace, and that basically no matter what the main characters do, it ends up blowing up in their face.

But anyway, I’m not writing this to analyze the show, I wanted to talk about something that has popped up a surprisingly high number of times to people I’ve spoken with about the show.  Whenever the character Sam comes up, an alarming (to me) amount of people seem to all think that he’s played by Randall Park.  No, it’s an actor named Raymond Lee.

Yes, they’re both of Korean heritage, and there are some broad physical similarities, but the fact of the matter is that there’s like a 12-13 year age difference and all you motherfuckers who make this error are 100% arr rook same-ing them.

The world and America might think they’re progressing and making some strides when it comes to tolerance, acceptance and more respect for Asians in general, but people still can’t seem to keep their mouths shut when it comes to using better judgment and not trying to compare Asians even when they’re not 100% certain.

Maybe in the near future, Raymond Lee can basically start filling in all the roles that would’ve been meant for a younger Randall Park, kind of how like Mahershala Ali is basically picking up all of Wesley Snipes’ old roles, but until then none of these motherfuckers are the same guy and white people need to stop making assumptions about minorities rooking the same.

Oh, Georgia #459

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not sure why this is news: Georgia has the most schools in the country still named after confederate figures

Must be a slow news day or something.  Finding out the fucking Georgia still leads the nation in schools still named after people associated with the confederacy is about as surprising as finding out that it’s still hot in the summertime in September here too. 

I mean, why wouldn’t it?  Sure, Alabama is where the Confederate White House is and probably should be the state leading the nation in this category, but I’m just going to swing wildly and throw out that Georgia has a greater black population than they do, and when you have more black people, that means there are more white people who want to try and denigrate them and hold them down, in ways like opening up a bunch of schools named after confederate figures.

Here’s the thing though; and a lot of this is assumption based on a few isolated cases; it’s not so much that Georgia probably revels and takes pride in the fact that they’re the leaders in this embarrassing statistic, it’s probably more the case that as a branch of government, something as seemingly simple as changing the name to a school, still takes eons to do.  Georgia might be #1 in confederate named schools, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that behind the scenes or at a more local level, this isn’t news to the local citizens and parents of students at these schools, and change may or may not have already been prompted.

I live in an area where there’s one particular school that stands out.  For literal years now, the topic of their name emerges, typically from a student that goes there, and typically of a minority background, bringing up the fact that their school is named after some confederate figure.  Then the school and county drag their feet, stall for time, and be typical government, and then these students themselves eventually gradate out and then turn their backs to the SJW-ing they were most likely doing to posture for college and/or attention, and then the conflict kind of resets back to zero. 

I’ve only been in my current area for five years now, but I’ve already seen this cycle occur twice.  It’s but one singular instance in state with 45 schools named after confederates, but I’m going to assume that this probably happens at more than just this one.

Which is sad in itself, that it takes kids to get a ball that adults should have already been spinning for decades now, to start rolling, because their time is finite in these schools, and they’re kids; they’re not going to give a shit once they’re gone, because they might actually have more promise and future than the generations before them.  Or maybe not, I don’t know.  But kids shouldn’t be responsible for prompting this change in the first place, but here we are.

Whatever though.  Fortunately for me, my home isn’t in the district of the aforementioned school, so the likelihood of them going there is pretty unlikely, and therefore won’t have to be bothered about trying to answer questions on if they know who their school is named after.

This just makes me want to see it more

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Funny how things work out: segment of internet looking-for-things-to-get-mad-about-people decide to get mad over Awkwafina’s “blaccent,” citing cultural appropriation, racism, hypocrisy or all of the above; and declare a boycott to Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

I’ve actually never heard of the property Shang-Chi ever, until news of an actual Marvel film featuring Asian people began to emerge.  I have zero clue to the property, whether it features mutants, or supers based on myth, magic or cosmic, or if Shang-Chi ever crossed paths with any X-property, the Avengers, or even had a run-in with Juggernaut since it seems like at some point, everyone has a run in with Juggernaut.

That being said, I kind of wasn’t really that interested in seeing it, because in spite of the equity that the Marvel Studio sand the MCU had built, it was beginning to feel a little bit like a checkbox situation where kind of like how Black Panther lit a fire under the black community, and based on how Crazy Rich Asians performed at the box office, Disney and Marvel decided to take a stab at tapping into the Asian community with a Marvel film, with an Asian-based story.

I wasn’t interested in seeing what I thought was going to be the affirmative action of the MCU, even if it had the legendary Tony Leung in it, making me wonder just how many times if at all, showed up in American film.

But as is often the case, when news like this hits, and I see people on the internet acting like buffoons, all it really serves is to make me want to defy them and see their stupid efforts fail, and therefore go see Shang-Chi.  Not quite to the point where I want to risk my health and go out into a theater, but I definitely have some intention to watch this now, for sure.

I mean seriously, people getting upset over the way Awkwafina speaks?  Because she occasionally uses a black affect when speaking, as if the terms wiggers and chiggers haven’t been a thing for the last 25 years, but is only taboo when a celebrity does it? 

Would Eminem have a career at all, if he showed up in this generation?  He’s white and therefore should not be rapping, because that might be considered cultural appropriation since apparently only black people are allowed to rap and speak in a certain manner.

Anyway, my favorite part of the article was when they cited that this isn’t the first time people had wanted to boycott Awkwafina:

It is worth noting that similar accusations of culture appropriate were lobbied against the Asian American actress when she voiced the dragon Raya in Raya and the Last Dragon, currently available on Disney+ and made 122.7 million USD at the Box Office 

So the SJWs didn’t learn their lesson from Raya and they think they’ll fare much better with Shang-Chi?  Yeah, I look forward to seeing just how much money Shang-Chi is going to bulldoze in when it drops, and see just how effective these so called boycotts are actually going to be.

Let’s not even discuss the thousands of people out in the world that aren’t Asian, but have some sort of Asian text tattooed onto themselves.  I’d wager there’s a substantial overlap of non-Asians with Asian characters tattooed on themselves with those who are pretending to be outraged and claim they’re going to boycott.

It’s okay though.  The internet doesn’t need to find out when these peoples’ friends talk about how decent of a film it might actually be, and whether it’s peer pressure, hypocrisy, or just being full of shit, they’ll still watch it anyway, all the same.

Let’s talk about the Cleveland Guardians

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Originally written for July 23, 2021

In one hand, there’s often times resistance to change, even when the change is surrounding perceived offensive sports team names like the Redskins, the Braves and the Indians.  But at the same time, there’s this unwinnable outcome where no matter what the name is changed to, won’t be met with the unforgiving, relentless wrath of internet comedians.

And as much as I too am ready to clown on the Cleveland Indians for being among the first of red-flagged sportsball team names, there’s something to be said about the fact that they stopped dragging their feet, and made official an actual change to the team’s name and identity, because sure, they’re going to and already getting all the ridicule and jokes of the internet, but they’ll also be the first to be forgotten, moved on from, and it will really suck for the Redcorn team that changes their name last, because they’ll inevitably be the one most remembered, and hardest to move forward since they’ll have nobody after them to help take the shrapnel next.

Anyway, so let’s talk about the Cleveland Guardians, formerly the racist-ass Cleveland Indians.  Now I’ve said my peace several times about how I couldn’t really care any less about team names, but I’m neither a triggered descendent of Native Americans nor am I an evil whitey who is exploiting them.

No matter what they team name was going to be changed to, it was inevitable that it wouldn’t be good enough, logical enough, or provide nearly enough room for clowning on, to possibly make it ironically good.  And make no mistake, “the Guardians” most certainly fulfills that failed destiny of a mediocre name change, but surprising nobody at all, it’s a bland, vanilla, generic name type that of course, has no potential to offend anyone, and in the corporate, soulless world of professional sports, it’s basically perfect.

As far as their general branding goes, it’s perfectly safe, sterile, and basically feels like a little league team’s identity has been promoted to the big leagues.  The wordmark is sterile, boring and I don’t even want to know what fake-ass creative agency’s rhetoric is behind it’s boring-ass display.  And it should be of no surprise at all that the boring-ass capital C that has been the interim icon of the franchise, appears to have stayed.

But let’s talk about the, what I’m guessing is some sort of alternate logo, featuring the G of Guardians.  It’s basically a straight rip of a Korean professional gaming club, SK Telecom’s T1 logo.  Why the letter G needs to have wings is one question, but it just so happens that said wings are literally a direct rip off of SKT’s wings used in their T1 logo.  Seriously, the style of them is literally the same as T1’s, except they angle it differently as if logo savants on the internet wouldn’t notice.  It’s literally the same 4+3 feather pattern that merges into a G instead of a T1.

Either way, as a whole package, the Cleveland Guardians is about as exciting as a local home and garden expo.  But it still succeeds in moving the franchise past their supposed racist predecessors, and for corporate investor stooges, this is of the utmost importance to get back onto the MLB money train that will make money regardless of if the team was named the Indians, the Guardians, the LeBrons or the Zukes.

One funny side effect of more or less, retroactively posting something about this topic is this little nugget that showed up not long after the initial press release introducing the Cleveland Guardians: apparently a corporation as buttoned up and polished like MLB didn’t have the wherewithal to double check that “Cleveland Guardians” was entirely available, because not only was the URL, the Facebook and Instagram accounts for “Cleveland Guardians” already taken, they’re owned by a roller derby team and have been for the better part of the last decade.  Not just any roller derby team, but a male roller derby team, and this is the first time that I’ve ever heard of such a thing actually existing.

By now, all the jokes in the world have already been made that I’m not even going to bother to try and pile on top of.  All I know is that eventually, the MLB Cleveland Guardians will get what they want, but I can definitely hope that the men’s roller derby Cleveland Guardians will put up just enough of a fight to embarrass their baseball bitches, and ultimately get a nice big fat settlement out of it, because it’s basically the golden ticket that no other men’s roller derby team will ever be lucky enough to stumble on again in the future.