Tag: racism

New Father Brogging, #011

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Throughout this week, mythical wife and I have introduced a baby monitor, so that we can put her down at a scheduled time, and still be able to keep eyes and ears on her from elsewhere in the house, while we try to reclaim a little bit of time for ourselves.  At first, it felt almost alien, having some free time back, and initially I used them only to do chores and tasks that tend to fall to the backburner on most days, but then when I’d finish those, I realized that it wasn’t yet 11 pm, and I actually had some free time back on my hands.  It was kind of nice.

Today, my daughter let out the most high-pitched shrieks I’ve ever heard come from her.  Worse off, we heard them first through the baby monitor, so they occurred with neither parent in sight.  I tore up the stairs and into the bedroom to get to my child as fast as possible, and hearing them in person was the most soul-piercing sounds I’d heard in my entire life.  I picked her up out of the bassinet and held her to my chest immediately.  Moments later I was in the most tears I’d been in since her birth, because no parent should want to hear such horrific sounds emanating from their baby.

Fortunately, everything seemed to be fine; maybe she was having a bad dream, or maybe it was the fear of awakening without the use of her arms, since we have her sleep swaddled.  Maybe a combination of both, or maybe she was overheated, since the bedroom tends to warm up throughout the day.  But either way, because nobody can speak baby, we’ll never truly know to why she was in such a frenzied panic, but all I do know is that it was one of the most frightening experiences for me in recent memory, and I’m still admittedly a little shaken up by it, regardless of if everything is fine.

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Silence ≠ ambivalence

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve had a difficult time putting into words the things that I feel these days, as the world continues to sink further and further into chaos.  Tons of people suddenly loathe law enforcement, and there’s no end to the ping-ponging of stories out there where one side of the fence is writing whatever they can to slander the other side of the fence.  Cops supposedly being overheard ordering each other to deliberately go out and hurt protesters, protesters being accused of transforming into looters, and the list goes on and on where two definitive sides are trying to smear the other.

Throughout it all, I’ve watched own social media landscape turn from a pretty casual, relaxed locals-only kind of environment to where everyone is now taking a very intense voice about current events, and it’s honestly a little bit frightening.  People calling out their friends and family that might have different viewpoints, and others ready to get into vitriolic arguments at the drop of a hat if anyone dares to have a conflicting opinion.  I’ve seen no less than three posts where people are rallying others to suppress their own posting unless it’s relevant to current events, because “it will take up space” as if there’s ever been any amount of finite space on the internet.

Offline, people are going out en masse to attend protests and this scares me more than anything, because unless you’ve been living under rocks, protests all across the country have often descended into riots, regardless of whom starts it, and the nights end with tallies of injured, arrested, and eventually if this keeps up, dead.  Cops beating the shit out of civilians, bouts of looting erupting in just about every city where protests are occurring, and as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing good at all is happening on a nightly basis.

I’ve mostly kept quiet about all of this because I frankly don’t know what to really say.  My world right now is quite tiny, because yes I definitely have feelings for what’s happening in the greater world all around me, but with an infant child that classifies as medically fragile, my focus and energy is primarily on my baby, whom I grieve for, having been born in such a terrible year in history.

But please don’t mistake my silence for ambivalence, and I do state such in response to the asinine opinion that those who aren’t posting allied messages, or changing their Facebook profile pictures to black squares, or going out and protesting, or any other virtual action or otherwise, is implicit in the negativity by being inactive.  That’s a bullshit belief, and I really scoff at anyone who believes such; but only those specific people.

Because saying “everyone” would be an blanket statement, and frankly I feel that we’re in this what I’m calling blanket statement culture, where the prevalent opinions that are being flung around left and right are these gigantic, overarching blanket statements where all cops are bad, all protesters are looters, all black people are thugs, and all sorts of encompassing rhetoric.

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New Father Brogging, #010

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A thought that often crosses my mind is that I can’t believe the world that my daughter was born into.  And then I feel really sad about it, despite knowing that she very well won’t remember any of this stuff, but one day she might read about it in history books or any sort of resource that outlines the happening throughout history.

It’s bad enough she was born right at the very start of when coronavirus came into the United States and was shortly declared a global pandemic, literally changing the landscape of the world where the vast majority of educated people began to take shelter in their homes, to minimize the spread of a new disease.

But in a way that can only be described as amazing, a global pandemic still managed to get pushed into to the backseat by the more recent civil unrest that’s boiled over on account of the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, and very recently George Floyd in Minnesota, with the latter being pretty flagrantly executed by a white police officer, when his neck was low-key crushed under the knee of the cop.

As I’m writing this, all across the country, there have been countless protests, many of which escalated into riots complete with looting, and there are hundreds to thousands of people who have been physically harmed, gassed, tazed or impacted by some form of crowd control.  The police are widely viewed as the enemy now instead of the agency that’s meant to serve and protect, and it’s times like this in which I’m kind of glad that one, I don’t live/work as close to actual city-proper Atlanta as I used to, and two, add the staying home as yet another ironic benefit to there being a fucking pandemic.

It’s a very sad and scary thought to think of this being the world that my first child was born into, and I feel like the generations before her have already let her down in fostering a world that’s supposed to be safe and better for the future.

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New Father Brogging, #008

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been called a racist more times than I should probably be comfortable with, in my life.  It’s not something that I’m proud of, I’m just merely stating the fact that plenty of people I’ve interacted with in my life tend to think that I harbor some racist beliefs.  I’m not going to argue about the semantics behind such, but when the day is over, sure, I might find some humor in dark jokes, or race-related topics, but I genuinely don’t dislike my fellow man and woman, for no sole reason than the color of their skin.  I typically grow to dislike my fellow man and woman, because I think they’re toxic personalities, and not the color of their skin or what box they check off under nationality on any sort of legal documentation.

The thing is, I think I get tagged as a racist as often as I do, because I’m pretty frank and candid when it comes to talking about race, stereotypes, and calling bullshit or double-standards on behavior when it comes to race.  Like take for example, America has become this country that’s so riddled with white guilt and apologetic to the black community, that the African-American community has somewhat of an immunity when it comes to criticism, because a large portion of America is afraid to step on the toes of black people. 

Unfortunately, it’s a tale of two extremes, and for every two people who are overly cautious around black people, there’s a closeted or not-so closeted bigot, that absolutely abhors black people, and actually acts on it, discriminating like slavery never was abolished.

However, in spite of the PC bulletproof vest that the black community tends to have against white people, other minority groups don’t have the same luxury.  Asians and Hispanics especially, are treated like this third-tier group, and not only do they endure all sorts of criticism from white people, black people love to clown on Asians and Hispanics as if their entire demographic never endured discrimination in their entire lineages.

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Oh, Atlanta #669

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny, when Bubba decided to reopen the state of Georgia, starting with a very auspicious cherry-picked selection of businesses, my first thought was that “hey, this seems like it could be kind of racist, opening up all these businesses that tend to lean towards having mostly black workers and patrons.”  I asked around several people if they thought my opinion possibly held any weight, and the majority of the responses were mostly not really, and that I was more likely the racist for thinking such thoughts.

However since then, the black community has been pretty up in arms about how racist coronavirus is, how it’s a global conspiracy, and other claims, some more outlandish than the others.  But as it pertains to Georgia, when the black community starts echoing the thoughts that I had about how Bubba’s choices of business to reopen the state with, then I feel a little bit validated.

Unfortunately, in spite of the claims of Bubba’s racism, there are plenty of people who are content to do their best to be statistics and perpetuate stereotypes, even if there’s monumental scientific evidence out there that we should all probably still be staying indoors. 

But when Nike releases some new Air Jordans, it’s apparent that even a global pandemic isn’t enough to prevent people from staying indoors, instead choosing to gather in tight crowds and really put each other in the line of fire, all for the sake of trying to get some fucking shoes.

Now before anyone else decides that I’m being racist for thinking that surely not every single person at this Air Jordan release day is black, read the article: Greenbriar Mall.  Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of Atlanta knows that Greenbriar Mall is basically 100% black, save for the few other minorities that have the gumption to open up businesses in a predominantly black mall, but as far as patrons go, it’s basically 100% black.  For context, this is a mall that used to house a Magic Johnson Theater, which were basically only in Los Angeles and a few other sparsely selected jurassic ghettos outside of California.

Either way, this is what we’d ironically classify as “a very Atlanta story” as even in the middle of a pandemic, people still can’t seem to stay away from gathering, as long as Air Jordans are on the line.  Naturally, the internet has had a field day with it, claiming all sorts of racist unflattering remarks, and pointing out why so many people are going out in public when, at the time of this going live was, the shoes were still readily available to purchase online; which then opened up a whole other can of racist remarks and memes.

To some degree, I hold Nike responsible for recklessly (or cerebrally) maintaining the course and releasing these shoes.  Surely they know the pandemonium the releases of Air Jordans tend to do to the sneakerhead community, much less urban, and it’s pretty poor optics that even when people are getting sick and dying out there, they’re content to give people reasons to leave their homes and gather, but that’s just me.

I guess Bubba will be very happy if the black voter base starts taking some more losses on account of them pursuing fucking shoes, but frankly that was probably the intent the entire time when he decided to reopen Georgia.

Welp, so much for flattening the curve

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve long since stopped using the phrase “just when I thought people couldn’t possibly get any dumber,” because no matter what flabbergasting things in the world people do, they can always inexplicably find a way to do something dumber.  No. Matter. What.

In spite of the fact that Georgia, much less the rest of America is nowhere close to being on the path to being remotely similar to South Korea or Taiwan in terms of fighting coronavirus, our idiot governor Yosemite Sam, has decided that the stay-at-home ordinance is going to be lifted so that certain types of businesses can open reopen and get back to work; as in people go out of your homes into the world that has a potentially deadly airborne virus floating all over the place and get back to fucking work for the sake of the economy at the risk of your literal lives.

Before we even get to the list of approved businesses, let’s just opine about how recklessly horrible this decision is.

Despite the fact that Georgia ranks in the top-10 states in worst coronavirus numbers, they’re basically scrambling to get to the front of the line in regards to encouraging people to leave their homes, go out amongst other people and put themselves at increased risk; in order to get back to work.

Because the economy needs it. 

So go put yourselves in danger.  Because money

Anyway, let’s take a look at the businesses that will be opening within the next week:

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New Father Brogging, #001

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

At the time I’m writing this, my daughter is officially one week old.  It’s hard to believe that it’s been but just a week since she was born, because there are times where the last few days have felt like eternities, and then there are times where the hours have flown by, leaving me scratching my head to what just happened.

Several of those days were spent living at the hospital, as mythical wife was still recovering from surgery; and as crazy as it might sound, in spite of the uncomfortable bed, the cramped quarters, flimsy water cups, crappy television sound, and the general feeling of a lack of privacy, I kind of enjoyed it a lot.  There was an intimate feeling being there with my wife, just the two of us that’s hard to explain, but ultimately, it was the comfort in knowing that at just about any time, I had the capability to walk to the NICU to see my daughter, being nursed into readiness for the real world.

And I did just that; even the first night after birth, I personally delivered mythical wife’s colostrum to the NICU at all hours of the night, just so I could have an excuse to see my newborn daughter, even if there were all sorts of tubes, wires and hoses coming from her frail little being.  She was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever witnessed in my life, and it’s hard to not get teary-eyed just thinking about those quiet moments of just the two of us in a room with me watching over her.  I must have scrubbed my arms raw several times over, thanks to the required 2-minute scrubs in order to enter the NICU, but I’d rather deal with some dry skin than know some germs can get in and harm babies.

In fact, not a day goes by where I don’t get overwhelmed with an emotional feeling and get teary-eyed at some point, whether it’s thinking about one of the many unforgettable moments over the last week, or it’s looking at a picture of my baby and feeling what unconditional love genuinely feels like.  In other words, daddy is a great big crybaby, but I don’t really care what anyone thinks about it, because nothing is really going to change the fact that I’ll probably bawl my eyes out thousands of more times over the next few years.

What’s interesting about this period of time is that if not for the fact that my precious baby were in the picture, the general conversation around the rest of the world surrounding me would sound so much more different.

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