Tag: racism

Gentrification Station, what’s your location?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ever since I moved back out to the ‘burbs and no longer have a job in Midtown/Downtown proper, I don’t miss the city one bit.  I have little to no business going into the city anymore, and I don’t miss it one iota.  I used to feel like I was missing out on the pulse of Atlanta if I didn’t at least work inside city proper, but that ship of importance has long since sailed a couple times around the planet by now.  I just don’t give a fuck about what’s going on in the city, nor does it actually matter to me anymore.

However, #2’s recent baby modeling engagements have required us to go back into the city, and as a once-in-a-while kind of thing, I was looking forward to seeing just how much has changed over the last few years.  And gee, by golly, how things have changed a lot since I used to have frequent business there.

Sure, there are a few new skyscrapers that I had no idea sprang up like they were dropped in from the sky like in Sim City, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.  I’m here to talk about the bomb of gentrification that seems to have plopped itself on the western edge of the city, and they’re all too eager to let you know about it.

West Midtown was definitely becoming a thing when I still worked in the city and when mythical then-gf was living within city proper.  Basically starting at around Georgia Tech, everything west and going north of campus was developing rapidly, especially off of the Howell Mill and Northside Drive corridors.  Going away were dilapidated lots and ram shack buildings, and all these mixed-use apartments with bougie restaurants on the ground were appearing.  The gentrification wand was definitely shaking its fairy dust all over this area.

But going back into the city on South Atlanta-Marietta Blvd to avoid the usual bullshit traffic of I-75 and the connector, I drove through Upper West Midtown, which was definitely hit by the Albert Pujols baseball bat of gentrification.  As soon as you cross the Chattahoochee where Atlanta Rd. becomes Marietta Blvd, Upper West Midtown becomes a thing, and all sorts of new businesses and apartments have appeared where there were none the last time I really had any business going down this route.

It started with a Publix that was predictably victimized by the general area at first, but apparently the neighborhood has soldered through, and the gentrification bomb appears to have done some work over the last few years.  Now I have no idea if the heat map of crime has actually changed in that area, but generally with gentrification comes the pushing of riff-raff out the door.

However, the biggest transformation, I would have to say was the generally industrial neighborhood that is along Chattahoochee Ave.  In my days, this area was a generally undesirable area that I favored tremendously, because there were some real gems of restaurants amidst the off-beaten paths, but it definitely looks like the secret is out, and this place too was hit hard by the gentrification bomb.

Obviously, fewer things are whiter than microbreweries, and as mythical wife had pointed out, there are no fewer than 4-5 independent breweries that have emerged within a 1-mile radius in this area.  But while mythical wife and #2 were at the agency studio doing their baby modeling thing, #1 and I had the opportunity to explore the newly gentrified area, and I came upon a true monument to gentrification.

Christened “The Works,” this is basically a shopping center full of ridiculous businesses that I’m amazed to stay in business because they’re all galleries and use words like curated and rustic to describe their wares, and I don’t even want to go in because I feel like I’d drown in arrogance and pretentiousness.  But the biggest reason to come in was the food court, which in today’s gentrified vernacular must be referred to as a food hall, because all of the vendors are local and independent proprietors, and not like Panda Express, Popeyes, or Chick Fil-A.

As I was hungry and needed to feed my other child, #1 and I managed to drop $27 on a sandwich and a slider, and then another $12 on three fucking cookies because I wanted to treat my wife and my mom to some locally-sourced goods, but didn’t know the price before purchasing them which I’m sure is deliberate because they’re preying on people wanting to avoid the awkward scenario of refusing something upon finding out the cost. 

I mean, the quality of the lunch and cookies were definitely good, and I’m not beneath dropping $40 on such a seemingly low quantity of food, but I’m also not going to deny that it’s expensive and a little pretentious.

All the same, I would take pretentious gentrification monuments over shantytown abandoned plots of land.  As much as I want to clown on The Works and their Food Hall, it actually is still a lovely place that I’d like to fantasize about bringing the wife to for a no-kids date night in a fantastical scenario that will probably never happen.

But it’s just all too amusing to see all the very white tropes and tendencies that happen to an area when the gentrification bomb is planted and explodes.  At least all of the eateries that I remembered fondly all appear to still be there, and hopefully they’re benefitting from the newfound traffic that all this gentrification is bringing to the area.

Let’s make a deal

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I saw this article about how the internet went bonkers because supposed-to-have-been-cancelled Awkwafina was in some Disney commercial during the Super Bowl, because prior to the release of Shang-Chi, the internet was offended because she spoke with too much of an urban black affect that she was clearly maliciously culturally appropriating and therefore needed to be boycotted and cancelled.

And after rolling my eyes at the pitiful double standard that it’s okay to lecture and bully Asian people on race because the white people world is so collectively afraid of black people, I just thought that the cool kids world needs to be proposed this idea:

If Asian people can’t speak with black people affects, then black people can’t get tattoos of Asian language.  Deal?  

Seriously.  Speaking on behalf of all Asian people, we will stop speaking with any sort of rapper or black person affect, but all black people, from rappers to NBA players, are prohibited from getting tattoos of any Asian characters on their bodies.  No kanji, no hangul, no katakana, none of it.  And we Asians will never put an affect in our speech, ever again.

Like, I don’t know where people get the nerve to pick this battle so often.  As if Awkwafina is the first person in history that wasn’t black to speak like black people do.  You don’t see the internet trying to cancel Eminem or Pitbull or any other not-black rapper that’s ever made money spitting rhymes.

This is a classic textbook example of Margaret Cho’s observation about how white people love to lecture Asian people on race because they’re afraid to say this stuff to black people.  The internet all white-knighting for black culture at the expense of Asians, because we’re seen as docile and subservient and okay to try and boss around because they know they can’t get away with doing such towards black people.

All the while, all sorts of not-Asian people all think it’s okay and acceptable to tattoo Asian characters on their bodies – because it fucking is.  Freedom exists, and although it might seem silly, white people, black people, Hispanic people, or whatever race there is, is free to tattoo Asian characters on their bodies, and not be criticized to the point where they are suggested to be cancelled.

People who lose their minds over how Awkwafina speaks need to get off their high horses, off her nuts and off of the nuts of Asian people in general, because they’re embarrassing themselves by feeding into a bullshit double standard that they’re too stupid to realize that they’re committing.

Suggesting cancelling someone over how they think someone is speaking is fucking idiotic and anyone who buys into that should cancel themselves for how stupid believing it actually makes them.

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.