Tag: racism

Double standards sure are funny

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Came across this article about a restaurant opening up; named “Black Gurl Brunch Club.”

Pretty sure if any other demographic attempted to utilize a similar hierarchy, there would be some heads rolling.  White Guy Steakhouse, Latinas Tacos and Empanadas, Korean Guy Soju Shack and Bollywood Girl Street Food would probably wrinkle some eyebrows and ruffle a few feathers, if people from those respective demographics attempted to open businesses with such ludicrous names.

Despite the restaurant’s claim that the restaurant is “for everyone:”

Though Black Gurl Brunch Club’s name highlights a specific demographic group, Lavender said the restaurant itself is meant for everyone. 

“The majority of our fan base is black women,” she said. “So we wanted to be appreciative of that. Young black women are alienated a lot, so we wanted them to feel comfortable here. But the restaurant is about everyone coming together to celebrate each other. Everyone is welcoming, and everyone is welcome.”

When you use a name that sounds like you’re only welcoming a specific demographic, you’re basically pigeon-holing your expected demographic, and probably going to automatically scare off most people not in it, from ever visiting.  Most people aren’t going to check a website or social media to see if they’re allowed to come in, they’re just not going to come in.  I’d wager that is somewhat of a calculated expectation, and they’re saying they welcome all just to cover their bases, but in the end, it’s really a place meant for black gurls.

Continue reading “Double standards sure are funny” →

MLS is clearly the preferred white people sport

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Driving around Atlanta, there are often a lot of tells on peoples’ cars that indicate the race of the people driving them.  Some are pretty blatant, like how white people all love to have shit like stick figure family stickers, black people have big flashy rims or the content of Africa silhouetted in some way shape or form, or Hispanics having pictures of their trucks airbrushed onto their trucks, while being looked over upon by the Virgin Mary.

However, some tells are more subtle, but no less obvious to those who see them.  Like blackout license covers or (likely) illegal shades of tint or a box of Kleenex wrapped in an ornate satin box cover sitting in the back window.  But there’s no more obvious tell that a car belongs to a white person in Atlanta, than an Atlanta United sticker or emblem on it.  Because there’s nothing short of Ponce City Market and talking about gentrification and urbanism that white people in Atlanta like more than Atlanta United soccer.

And then it got me thinking beyond just Atlanta United, and about soccer in general, specifically MLS.  And how it really seems like MLS has become the de facto preferred spectator sport of choice for white people, even above the NFL, NBA and MLB.  The more cursory internet glancing I do, I’m seeing that in major cities like Toronto, Seattle, Portland and Philadelphia, if you take snapshots of the crowds, they’re unmistakably overwhelmingly white.  It doesn’t seem like a lot, but that’s really all the justification I need to make my snap judgments; I’ve been to enough cities to watch sports, and despite being in different states, they really aren’t that much different from one another.

Ultimately, I think white people loving MLS really boils down to two very obvious white people traits: racism and a lack of commitment.  A low-key third would be the fact that so many are hipsters, so naturally, they gravitate towards a lower-tier popularity sport, especially if it meant that there were fewer minority fans to have to mingle with.

But frankly, upon thinking about it, it kind of makes perfect sense why white people love MLS so much. Go to any NFL or NBA game, and it’s abundantly clear that black people love football and basketball.  And the average white person is often times afraid of the average black person, so it stands to believe that white people don’t like going to these sporting events, because it puts them in too close proximity with those that intimidate them.  When the home team does well and the black people get excited, it scares the white people.  But when the home team loses and the black people get butthurt, it scares the white people then too.  This isn’t to say that white people avoid these sporting events outright, but typically they tend to go when they have privileges like corporate box seats, or are in large enough numbers to where they manage to feel safe, but even still it’s not the same white safety as an MLS game would be.

Continue reading “MLS is clearly the preferred white people sport” →

Gee, I wonder why??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

About as shocking climate change: bill proposed to the Georgia House, would make it easier for independent and third-party candidates to run for office

It should be no surprise that barely-red state Georgia would want more third-party candidates to clog up the polls in the future; look no further than the last, very public and highly scrutinized race for the vacant governorship of the state.  Yosemite Sam narrowly defeated Stacey Abrams, 1,978,408 votes to 1,923,685, a difference of 54,723 votes.* 

*does not account for all absentee and/or disqualified ballots, the legality of which is another conversation

However, also included in the results was some libertarian schlub, who managed to garner 37,235 votes.  Obviously, in a scenario where there were only two parties available to vote from, it is no guarantee that all 37,235 of those votes would definitively have gone blue, but even if like, 60% of them were to have gone blue, it would have forced the election into a run-off situation.  Sure, there’s no guarantee that even in a re-vote, the results would have changed, but it might have been a wake-up call to ambivalent Georgians to get off their asses and vote, but if anything at all, it would have kept hope alive, which is something that not just Georgia, but the country as a whole is sorely lacking in these days.

The point is, I very much do believe that the Libertarian party kind of fucked Georgia in the last election, and I wish that they had a modicum of ability to read the room and understand the importance of standing down in a very critical scenario.  I seriously don’t believe a single Libertarian candidate over the last two decades have felt that “they’ve got a shot!” when it comes to entering any single political contest, and it was narrow-minded and arrogant, and frankly kind of troll-like for Ted Metz to even bother running in 2018.  In an election that literally came down to the wire, the votes that the Libertarians usurped were all wasted, and could very well have helped swing the state not just blue, but denying a low-life like Yosemite Sam from taking office.

So naturally, it shouldn’t be a surprise at all, that the same people who benefited the most from the presence of a third-party most certainly wants more third-parties to get their feet in the door.  Because until the Democrats of Georgia can amass enough votes and numbers to overcome all the suppression and tampering and still beat out the Republicans, the presence of third-parties will always be working against them, leading to yet another hurdle for them to overcome in order to try and flip the state.

Henry Golding, the gateway Bsian

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: GQ Magazine names Henry Golding as one of their men (and women) of 2018

I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I’ve got this love/hate idea of Henry Golding.  I love that he’s helping debunk the crippling stereotype that Asian men are the neutered weaklings of the gender by association of their ethnicity; but I hate that it’s a guy that barely is/looks a quarter Asian that is usurping all the credit in the world for advancing perception of Asians.

It’s not at all surprising, given how flagrantly and blatantly racist Hollywood is, and of course baby steps and all that rhetoric.  But why couldn’t it be a guy like Daniel Dae Kim, or like BD Wong, Asian men who are fearless pioneers amongst Asian actors, to get any sort of national nod above a practically white guy like Henry Golding?  Kim stuck to his convictions and walked away from a fairly successful show because he was getting financially stiffed.  Wong is openly gay, plays some of the most flamboyantly outrageous roles out there, and is still thriving in spite of having two less-than-socially-accepted-by-white-America strikes against him. 

What the fuck has a guy that looks like a bug-eyed Pierce Brosnan with gapped teeth done remotely in comparison?  Just be lucky enough to have grabbed the fascination of some producers to get spoon-fed the role of an Asian guy in a social commentary of a blockbuster film, and now he’s being credited by circle-jerk Hollywood of being some sort of groundbreaking talent? 

Frankly, if there’s absolutely anyone from Crazy Rich Asians who should be getting this kind of praise, it’s Constance Wu, the obvious hard carry of the entire film.  GQ could have made bigger waves had they actually strived for any sort of equality, and gone 2-and-2 with men and women as “men of the year” and had Wu take Golding’s place, and had her stand along with Serena Williams as women of the year.

But ultimately, I’m criticizing GQ.  They’ve been as relevant in the publication industry as like, MySpace during the era of Facebook, or HD DVDs in the world of Bluray.  A garbage rag like them picking a tool like Henry Golding is pretty much pathetic attempts to garner cheap pops from the lower-standards Asian community who are so desperate for any accolades to an Asian guy, that they’d even settle for a plant like him.

This wouldn’t fly the other way around

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Somehow this is okay: Detroit Lions cornerback proclaims “never saw a white guy” like Carolina Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey

Double standards are fun!  Imagine if the situation were reversed, and a white player were talking about a black player excelling at a role that black players weren’t necessarily known for playing.  Imagine if Eli Manning praised a black placekicker:

“Ah’ve never seen a black guy…” and then he would get his ass kicked by every black guy in the locker room before he could even finish the statement, because that’s just how things are in this day and age.  Or, he’d get the entire statement of praise out, and despite being phrase, Stephen A. Smith would absolutely blast him on The Ocho, calling him a racist, the Giants would suspend him, and the NFL would make him have to take sensitivity training.

The point is, even using the word “black” piques ears and interest like prairie dogs, regardless of what follows it, just in case it’s in reference to race, but applied the other way around, and it’s completely acceptable and okay.

I get that Darius Slay is really trying to praise Christian McCaffrey, but what does race have anything to do with it?  McCaffrey is an incredible running back regardless of if the color of his skin were white, black, green or Kree blue.  But nope, gotta get that white guy commentary in there, because black folks are allowed to do that.  And not just to white people, but all races, because society has been so whipped into feeling guilty for the treatment of blacks in history that they’re entirely given a free pass to make racist remarks without any repercussion.

I can’t wait for one of the numerous Korean placekickers in college and free agency gets singled out for being great kickers… for a Chinese guy.  If you think there’s vitriol in this post, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

I’m proud of Metro Atlanta

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Considering that at the time I’m writing this, the midterms were ten days ago, and the State of Georgia has still not officially declared a winner for the governor’s race, I was initially going to wait until the result was made official before writing anything about this.  But I’m leaving the country for the next week and change, and I just know I’m not going to want to bother retouching this subject after a long vacation, and frankly the result looks like it’s pretty much in the bag, in spite of the valiant effort put forth by the Democrats, so let’s go ahead and get this shit out of the way.

It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point that Brian Kemp is going to be the new governor of Georgia, much to my dismay.  Color me part-mortified that the guy I ridiculed months ago for having a campaign ad where he’s basically holding a shotgun to a teenager is going to be rising to amongst the highest offices in the state, but at the same time, I can’t say that I’m the least bit surprised in this day and age; especially if you stop and think about who’s in charge of the United States at this current juncture.

I have several mixed feelings about the whole clusterfuck that ended up being the governor’s race, but I think the one that bubbles up to the very top of them all is simply put, fuck the Libertarian party.  Given the extreme narrow margin of victory that Yosemite Sam had over Stacey Abrams, I have this opinion that the presence of a Libertarian candidate on the ticket basically usurped votes that could have either solidified a Republican win, or swung the entire race in favor of the Democrats.  Considering the general ideals of the traditional Libertarian versus the perceived extremes between the Repubs and Dems, I feel like if a gun were to the head of a Libertarian, they’d probably swimg Democratic, and we’d have a completely different story on our hands right now.

I feel that the Libertarian party in this instance were being selfish and incapable of reading the room, and even they had to realize that Babytrump couldn’t possibly be in the best interests of Georgia.  And with that in mind, why would they bother to interlope in a critical election that was already expected to be razor thin from the onset, and usurp essential votes that could very well have changed history at this time?

Frankly, the Libertarian party disgusts me currently, and I kind of fucking hate their existence right now.  I’m not saying that their votes would have definitively all swung blue, but in a hypothetical, majority blue scenario, they’d not only have led the election to a run-off but probably a Democratic win.  And maybe with some modicum of change achieved, maybe they’d have a better chance for notoriety running in a not-red state.

Continue reading “I’m proud of Metro Atlanta” →

I give it five minutes before it’s used inappropriately

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL;DR: the City of Atlanta announces the launch of Fix-It ATL, a website where people can report issues such as potholes, beautification needs, and other infrastructure problems in need of attention

Here’s the thing – if they had pretty much said that it was specifically for potholes, this might actually not be used inappropriately.  But since they use the phrases “beautification” and “other” in the description of how this service could be utilized, that’s why I give it five minutes before Fix-It ATL is going to be used inappropriately.

Because people are trolls, dicks, racists and just a whole bunch of generally terrible people.

I’d love to be on the receiving end of the computers that are in charge of Fix-It ATL, when people start reporting things such as like, “too many black people on the Beltline,” or “a pothole on Ponce de Leon… next to all the illegal Mexicans waiting outside of Home Depot,” among many other terrible things that people are going to report, because they’re terrible people, they know they can get away with it, or all of the above.

But if it were just potholes, then the potential for terrible shit is somewhat mitigated, but I wouldn’t put it past people to figure out ways to make things as corrupt as possible, because the world is full of shitheads.  The idea is good, and I certainly hope that among the fifty pounds of crap that is bound to flow into their inboxes, there are some actual constructive reports and requests that might actually make Atlanta just a little bit nicer.

The flipside is that the corrupt city doesn’t really have the ability for deniability anymore.  With a service like this firmly in place, when people report issues like potholes and things that need repair, the city can’t play dumb or deny it was ever received if a service like this is launched, which will create a nice little digital paper trail for things to be requested of the city.  The idea is really nice, but now the pressure is on for the city to actually follow through with their claims, lest this become yet another bullet in the list of broken promises that the city continues to claim is going to happen.