Tag: racism

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.

Who cares more: black people or white guilters?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I heard that Netflix’s upcoming rendition of Resident Evil cast a black guy to play the role of historically white Albert Wesker, my knee-jerk reaction was that of eyes rolling.  I have nothing against Lance Reddick, and think he’s an otherwise fantastic actor, but this reminds me of when Michael Clarke Duncan was cast as the Kingpin in that one shitty Daredevil film with Ben Affleck.  It doesn’t matter how physically convincing or how good of actors guys like Reddick and Duncan should portray these characters, but there are just some intellectual properties that come with some visual expectations based on the historical lineage of said IPs.

But whereas Daredevil stunk, Netflix inherently has the ability to make palatable chicken salad of out of chicken shit, so perhaps they’ll be able to take a black Wesker and make everyone watching forget about the color of his skin in their rendition of Resident Evil.  Lance Reddick has played a ton of dirty cops in his career, and he’s otherwise a very good match in age, physical stature and behavioral charisma that I’d expect someone to portray as Albert Wesker, so I’m hopeful he’ll do well being the baddest bad in the series.

Afterward, I began to think about how the black community would digest this casting, of a black man being given the role of said baddest bad, and wondering if there were those that took objection to a black man being a villain, to a society where way too large segments of it are far too easily convinced that fiction is reality, and that it’s doing the community no favors.

I posed this hypothetical to one of those friends of mine that we sounding board our random thoughts off of each other, but getting this train of thought out of the station, I came to realize that no matter what negative opinions the black community could have about the casting of a black Wesker, they’ll probably pale (no pun intended) in comparison to the raging objection of a black Wesker, from the white-guilt white community.

Frankly when the day is over, black people are probably just relieved to see a black actor getting a shake at a popular franchise like Resident Evil, and as long as they’re not a token black guy that gets killed and devoured in the first 15 minutes, they probably won’t care if they’re a protagonist or antagonist, and most anyone who’s ever played a Resident Evil game knows that few are as sheerly unkillable than Albert Wesker.

But white guilters, my god, they must be up in arms at the perceived insult to the black community that a black man is being cast as the main villain of a series.  There’s probably at least 23 SurveyMonkeys out their collating data of racism and unfair prejudice towards the black community, from like-minded white people.  And if Wesker is inevitably going to be played by a black guy, that absolutely means that no white people can portray the protagonists of the series, and dare stand up to further oppress blacks like their forefathers once did.

If they do choose to implement characters like Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, they most certainly have to be portrayed by Henry Golding and Eiza Gonzalez.  Rebecca Chambers can be played by Zazie Beetz, and I would be over the fucking moon if Barry Burton were played by Erik King AKA Doakes.  That way, Wesker would only be opposed by other minorities, and it wouldn’t create the intolerable conflict of white heroes versus a black villain.

The bottom line is that the answer to the original question is that without any doubt, white people are going to have a way bigger cow over the casting of a black Wesker than any black people.  But wait until they realize that all currently cast roles also feature no white people at all; this might just set out to be the most successful series on Netflix in history, to white folks.

Yeah good luck with that

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL;DR: Job Creators Network sues Major League Baseball for $100M and demands that the 2021 All-Star Game be returned to Atlanta

Sometimes I wonder if third-parties like this get involved in scenarios like this because they actually care, or if they’re just chasing the potential to get some free money in a settlement when and if an entity like MLB just doesn’t feel like dealing with this bullshit and is willing to throw some money at it in order to get it out of their hair.

Obviously with a case like this it’s undoubtedly going to be the former, because anyone with a brain knows that it’s nigh impossible to go at a gozillion dollar company like MLB and actually expect to have a fighting chance.  Frankly, I’d love to see MLB take it on and potentially counter-sue for the inconvenience and bury a shitty-sounding organization like “Job Creators Network” into oblivion.

Normally, I wouldn’t be so quick to judge an organization that sounds like it’s trying to create jobs, but when I saw this blurb, I kind of felt like I knew what I needed to know to be able to determine a side I’d rather side with:

The lawsuit was filed in New York City by attorney Howard Kleinhendler, who was also involved in several failed lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

So basically some baked potato-supporting brainless fucks who are picking fruitless fights for no real good reason.

The funny thing is that I normally love to see when MLB or Braves Corporate get owned, but in this particular instance, I have to stand with MLB, but at least Braves Corporate is still getting owned in the process.

Because there is a 0% chance that the All-Star game is coming back to Atlanta, and I’d like to see it remain that way; for both symbolic reasons that Georgia’s Jim Crow 2.0 personally ushered in by Bubba Kemp is horrific and flagrant, and that Braves Corporate, Truist and all their crooked cronies, constituents and talking heads are humiliated, owned and denied all the money that an All-Star game would’ve brought to them.  Bonus also being a big super-spreader event avoiding Atlanta Smyrna, alleviating roads, businesses and traffic.

Either way, this is a story that’s pathetic on all fronts, no matter what source it’s read from.  It’s a waste of time, money and resources for those who have to deal with it, and a perfect example of peoples’ eager willingness to do it in order to gain notoriety, exposure and potentially free money if the right people just want to see it go away.

Cen-owned

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol’d – John Cena calls Taiwan a country, gets massive backlash from China, apologizes, then gets heat from the industry that made him

I don’t really have an opinion on the whole is Taiwan a country thing, and frankly I don’t really want to.  I have no horse in this race, and I have friends and acquaintances that are both Chinese and Taiwanese, and it’s really none of my business to what my opinion might be.

But what prompted this post is that throughout his wrestling career, John Cena has been something of this stoic, unflappable icon, that in spite of the internet’s general disdain for him, has been somewhat of a maestro at navigating through time, shifts in fandom and I have a tremendous amount of respect for everything that he’s accomplished.  Scuttlebutt may disagree, but I feel that he’s aged extremely well and has gracefully transitioned from wrestling into movies almost as well as the Rock did.

It’s safe to say that John Cena has kind of transcended into something of a brand throughout the years, based on how methodical and clinical he’s conducted himself throughout his wrestling careers and his transition into Hollywood.  Look no further than his time on Total Divas to realize that nobody was a bigger diva than John Cena; he’s such a company of a man that he basically has the equivalent of a pre-nup for a live-in girlfriend.

So in the whole adage of as much as people love heroes, they love see heroes fail, it’s noteworthy and hilarious to me, that of all the things in world that could possibly trip up a machine like John Cena, it would be a subjective opinion on China that would land him in global, public hot water.

Honestly, regardless of the cringey, pandering and embarrassing apology to all Chinese people, a Fruedian slip-like blurting out of a statement like calling Taiwan a country is clearly what he believes, and there’s nothing wrong with that – it’s an opinion, and we’re all entitled to them, no matter how much criticism they’re subject to.

Frankly, I’m more disappointed in Cena’s response to the whole Chinese backlash, because contrary to the hustle-loyalty-respect brand he built himself on throughout wrestling, he kowtowed and crumpled like a burning piece of paper when it came to upsetting an entire country and very obviously at the behest of a Hollywood studio, he tucked his tail between his muscular legs and made a pretty immediate apology.

He, and the studio could’ve sent a powerful message to the world by digging in and standing their ground, but because the Chinese economy is basically the strongest in the world, they couldn’t possibly risk upsetting them and their coffers, so they showed their hand at what they prioritized above all hustle, loyalty or respect.

In the end, John Cena has basically jobbed three times in a row, which is probably a new record and something he didn’t even do, even in the post-Ruthless Aggression era.  He jobbed to China by looking like a bitch kowtowing to them, which makes him job to the wrestling industry that made him, because his peers now reportedly have heat with him for being a bitch, and of course, he’s jobbed to himself, because this course of action is most definitely something that the John Cena brand really wouldn’t be doing, if not for the tainted influence of Hollywood money.

A great way to start the MLB season

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: umpire Angel Hernandez loses lawsuit against Major League Baseball, accusing them of racial discrimination

If you’ve watched a season, or at least a regular month of steady baseball, there’s a good chance you’ve heard the name Angel Hernandez.  He’s an MLB umpire, and there’s a very good chance that he’s blown multiple calls for the team you’re rooting for.  In all fairness, he holds no bias against any particular team, as he has been consistent in the sense that he fucks everyone over at some point, regardless for whom they play for.

Also consistent, is that he is widely regarded as the worst umpire in all of Major League Baseball, and it’s not just my opinion; he’s literally been voted as such and for other (dis)honors for years at this point.  A cursory Google search will return not just links to stories about how he’s the worst umpire in MLB, but there are all sorts of video montages, memes and various forms of mediums that frustrated baseball fans have created throughout the years to share their opinions justify the notion that Angel Hernandez is the worst umpire in all of Major League Baseball.

It’s not even that he’s one of those stereotypical blind umpire who misses calls all the time; to me, it’s mostly because most of his decisions seem like reflexes, but the instant he’s challenged, he buckles down and absolutely refuses to change his mind, and the act of challenging his decisions is a personal attack to which he will hold a grudge for the remainder of the game as well have a harshly reduced trigger when it comes to ejecting players and coaches from the game.

This is nothing really out of the ordinary for all umpires in general, it’s just the perception is that Angel Hernandez relishes in it, seems to instigate incidents that have actual impact on the outcomes of games, and as Chipper Jones once opined, he tends to occasionally try and make the game about himself, instead of baseball.

Basically, it’s not hard to find evidence that Angel Hernandez is a pretty detested human being, but as long as he’s physically capable of doing his job, it doesn’t seem likely that he’s going to be going away any time soon, much to the dismay of fans and baseball players and personnel alike.

Anyway, just because he wasn’t content with everyone hating him as an umpire, Angel Hernandez decided to wander a little out of his realm to try and stir up more shit, and decided to sue his employers, Major League Baseball, and accuse them of racial discrimination, specifically towards him, because he is Cuban by birth.  He cited the fact that he was repeatedly overlooked to work World Series assignments as well as be promoted to crew chief status as means for discrimination, not considering the fact that World Series assignments are typically reserved for umpires that don’t suck at their jobs so that umpiring doesn’t impact the most important series of the year, and that MLB umpires literally go until they die, and there are still multiple guys with more seniority ahead of him for crew chief status.

Well, it only took four years because America’s legal system is fucking efficient, but the U.S. District Courts wrapped things up and sided with Major League Baseball, giving baseball fans and probably all sorts of MLB personnel and players a shit-eating grin of a victory against an asshole everyone wanted to stick it to for years but couldn’t, because umpires are given such absolute power on the field.  But frankly Hernandez made a huge mistake taking this battle off of the playing field, where he would be vulnerable and by god did the legal system capitalize on it.

Hernandez’s handful of cherry-picked examples does not reliably establish any systematic effort on MLB’s part to artificially deflate Hernandez’s evaluations, much less an effort to do so in order to cover up discrimination

The use of the phrase “cherry-picked” leads me to believe there’s a hint of vitriol in the judge’s remark, and seeing as how the judge is a man originally from Lexington, might’ve been a Reds fan, whom at one point witnessed a game (or many games) where Angel Hernandez turned the screws to his team, so he had a very easy opportunity to return the favor.  Completely coincidentally, the photo I used just so happened to be Angel Hernandez in action doing just that, to a Reds player.

I think the best part to me is that this wrapped up the day before the regular season was to begin.  There’s something about it that feels like MLB saw an opportunity to get this shit rushed and concluded right before a season was to begin, and give Angel Hernandez a humiliating loss, but at the perfect time where he wouldn’t have time to lament about it, since he has to get right back to fucking work on Opening Day no less, and take the field after being slapped with a defeat where he wasn’t omnipotent.

I can’t commit that I’ll actually watch any real amount of baseball this season, as I am a terrible fan plus I will have two kids by the time the playoffs roll around, so most likely I’ll be one of those guys that’s invisible throughout the entire regular season, and only show up in October when the Braves go back to the usual status quo of getting bounced in the NLDS, if they even make the playoffs at all.

But as far as the start of the season goes, Angel Hernandez getting bitch-slapped and put in his place by Major League Baseball, that’s a great way to start it, no matter how you look at it.

This is where the ‘You Sold Out’ chants would start

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment


The funny thing is most people weren’t aware how close Greg Valentine and JYD were in real life, in spite of this horrifically racist promo from 1985

That is, if the WWE actually had live crowds anymore.  The inspiration of this post comes from news that NBC’s Peacock streaming service, which acquired the entire WWE Network library and has formally liquidated it as of a few days ago, has begun going through their archives and scrubbing all sorts of perceived racist content.

I’ll be the first to admit that professional wrestling has a long history of having done some racist shit during its existence; but that can be said about absolutely everything that’s been around as long as the business has.  If Dr. Seuss, the freaking godfather of children’s literature was found out to have made some racist illustrations way back in the day, it should be no surprise when Triple H had a feud with Booker T with some severely racist undertones not so way back in the day.

Racist shit is all pretty bad stuff, but it happened, will always happen, and in spite of all the rah-rah rhetoric that’s thrown around left and right these days, I unfortunately wouldn’t wager a single penny that it’s ever going to go away any time soon.  It’s sad to admit that, but would you rather I lie about how I feel?

But one consistent opinion I have is that I am absolutely not a fan of any sort of revising of history, no matter what it is that’s trying to be canceled, censored, hidden or deleted from the past.  It doesn’t matter if it’s confederate statues or episodes of Community, I abhor the idea of anything that’s been created being deleted because they’re perceived as offensive.

Personally, it’s not so much it’s because I’m callous and fucked up and want racist shit to exist in plain sight of everyone, as much as I firmly believe that creators of these things need to own that this shit has happened, but most importantly, that they’ve (hopefully) learned something over the passage of time, and that such opinions and thoughts might not be their actual beliefs today.

The mistakes of the past are lessons for the present, of things that should be avoided, should be corrected, and should be worked towards improving upon, and not buried in the closet, stashed in a plastic Publix bag and hidden inside of an Amazon Prime cardboard box behind a larger box that was never unpacked from the last time you moved homes.

NBC going through the WWE video library and trying to scrub out racist content is no exception to these opinions of mine, and I wince and look at NBC with disgust at their cowardly attempt to hide the past instead of trying to learn from it.  When this stuff was all on the WWE Network, the WWE just slapped a disclaimer on all old content, succinctly explaining the content of these programs reflect their original air date’s time and ideals, and that not everything is applicable to modern times.  But NBC being so lily white homogenized, just would rather delete it from existence, to where, as Winston Churchill once said,

Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it

Imagine one or more of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon’s kids; if the WWE Network still existed when they’re old enough to watch some of the old content, they’d eventually come across the aforementioned HHH vs. Booker T feud.  Daddy could easily get in front of the topic, and explain to his kids the implications of the storyline, that they were wrong, that he was just acting, but to not replicate that sort of behavior or thinking.  It could be an actual teachable moment.

But in the Peacock world we’re living in now, his kids will never see that daddy portrayed an arrogant racist in a storyline, and one day, someone will find a clip on YouTube of daddy saying “you people” to a black man, and Hunter’s kids will come to their own conclusions and realize that daddy is racist.

He’s also into necrophilia when he was feuding with Kane, but for some reason, NBC seems to think that racist content is just a little bit more offensive, and his kids would be able to see that regardless of the platform but anyway.

The point is, I really dislike that NBC is doing what they’re doing, but frankly I’m disappointed that the WWE liquidated their fantastic network in the first place to sell to NBC.  I know coronavirus really put the hurt on the industry, due to the complete tanking of live events and all the revenue that comes with that, but this shit will pass, but what’s done is done, and WWE sold their shit out. 

I don’t know if they ever knew just how influential they were to the world we’re in now, where damn near every media company has an app now, and as much as none of them really would want to admit it, almost everyone’s eyes were on the WWE Network when they launched, and it was through them, most realized that they could survive and thrive on that model too.

But now they’re a tiny cog in a larger machine, that’s also going through their hallowed libraries and censoring all of their old shit that they think might hurt someone’s feelings.

You-Sold-Out!  You-Sold-Out!