Tag: racism

The sociological entertainment of Crazy Rich Asians

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As someone who agrees that Hollywood is whiter than a Republican national fundraiser, I knew it was something of a social obligation that I should go out and watch Crazy Rich Asians.  I never read the book, nor did I have any inkling of an idea of what the plot was about going into it, but I still figured it would be a good idea to support any progression for Asians in a white-dominated industry, if we want to have any modicum of a chance of earning any respect up in this motherfucker.

The movie itself was fine.  Fairly predictable and extremely formulaic, but refreshing in the simple sense that every face didn’t look like Finn Wittrock or Balakey Lively.  Constance Wu carries the film brilliantly, and it’s super gratifying to hear her speak in her actual voice and not as over-the-top tiger mom from Fresh Off the Boat.  I didn’t even realize it was her until seeing her name in the credits although I thought she looked familiar, but Michelle Yeoh’s presence as a cunningly savage rich Asian mom is like an anime where you can feel an aura emanating from her whenever she comes on screen.

It kind of goes without saying that I rolled my eyes at the casting of some hafu named “Henry Golding” as the male lead of the flim, when surely it most certainly could have been cast to an actual Chinese or other Asian guy that didn’t look like a cross between Lawrence from Westworld and a young Ralph Macchio.  But seeing as how this film was being released in white Hollywood (oxymoron?), there had to be some compromise to make sure white power had some degree of a tether to their oppressive natures.  But it’s okay, because as bland and useless of a character Nick Young was, the film had no intention of being carried by him in the first place.

There’s one character in the film whose storyline carries almost zero correlation with the main plot at all, and could presumably not been needed at all whatsoever.  I’m going to assume it’s vastly different in the book and has more of a connection, but for the film’s sake, I’m going to assume it was included probably solely because the actress involved in it is somewhat known, extremely pretty, and needs to have requisite screen time in order to justify her casting.

As for the rest of the film, it had some fun characters and was moderately enjoyable, even with the obnoxious people in the theater, to where I couldn’t decide which was worse between the incessant commentary in Mandarin from the girls next to me, or the incessant commentary from the stereotypical black women who felt the need to very loudly opinionate on everything.

Continue reading “The sociological entertainment of Crazy Rich Asians” →

Only going to talk about this once (hopefully)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So Yosemite Sam won the Republican nod to run for governor this November; this is not at all surprising, as victory was pretty much locked in as soon as the Donald Trump gave him his endorsement, which all but guaranteed all of his brainless sheep worshippers would vote him in.  Also not surprising was the relative ease in which he won the primary, defeating Casey Cagle by nearly 40 full points, going to further show just how much power a president that everyone loves to make fun of truly does wield.

So the field is officially set for probably the most important state election that I’ve lived in Georgia for, between gun-toting, Trump-worshipping, immigrant-threatening, unapologetically redneck Yosemite Sam, versus Stacey Abrams, a black woman, in a racist-ass state in busted-ass America, for governor of Georgia.

Obviously, I’ve written a lot of words about this particular topic, more than I ever thought I’d care to ever expend.  But I’m a grown-up (relatively), and I guess this is what happens to grown-ups, caring about politics, and I like the general state of Georgia these days, and I fear that a radical change in the political regime of the state highly jeopardizes such chill state of Georgia.

The bottom line is that no matter how much money, exposure and awareness that the Democratic party has funneled behind Stacey Abrams, she is obviously going to be the underdog by being both black and a woman, trying to make history, by becoming the first-ever black female governor in the United States.  In Georgia.  A state with deep roots involved with slavery, white supremacy and barely a decade removed from when they actually got the Confederate insignia off of its flag.

Continue reading “Only going to talk about this once (hopefully)” →

A wise man once said

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A futbol team cannot win a futbol game unless they score goals

Furthermore, a futbol team cannot score goals unless they take shots.  Although I counted two times where Sweden’s goalkeeper actually had to move in the box, the box score in Korea’s World Cup 2018 opening loss to Sweden, credits them with zero shots on goal.  ZERO.

How the fuck is it remotely possible to win a game when a team doesn’t even take a single shot?  The answer is that it’s not.  I’m pretty sure Sweden’s goalkeeper doesn’t even take a shower after the game and is able to meet up with whatever model of a wife/girlfriend for dinner without even having to reapply his deodorant, that’s how much of a day off today’s game was.  As for his teammates, they were basically in the Royal Rumble in a game that saw over 40 fouls called, but a big fat zero for shots on goal for Korea.

Yes, I know that getting in position to even take shots on goal is like 75% of the battle in the first place, but that just exemplifies Korea’s general lack of adaptability or creativity to even bother trying anything different from what wasn’t working throughout the span of 96 minutes, to where they could even take a shot.  Sweden’s defense was no slouch, but Korea wasn’t making anything harder by constantly having guys in telegraphed positions, or all the players essentially giving up once their routes were blocked.

But I’m not going to get too salty over this loss.  Korean soccer hasn’t been the same since the 2002 World Cup, and even then, they had the mother of homefield advantages throughout the entire tournament.  They were also coached by the legendary Guus Hiddink who was easily worth several of their wins by himself alone.  They’ve been good enough to qualify for all subsequent World Cups by virtue of a globally weak Asian pool, and once they get in, they’ve regularly been exposed as a class below the usual powerhouses from Europe and South America, and have been getting bounced routinely.

Continue reading “A wise man once said” →

Not sure if this is a good thing to disclose or not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: City of South Fulton Renaissance Wakanda City of South Fulton’s entire law enforcement division led entirely by African-American women; publicly acknowledged as “black girl magic”

Yeah, if I were still living in South Fulton county, I’d be happier if the law enforcement arm they weren’t doing photoshoots and were actually doing some work.  I’m not entirely sure this is such a great story to break currently, because for those who don’t really follow what’s going down in the City of South Fulton, the whole place is kind of in shambles, infrastructure wise.

The fact that they can’t even land on a name for the city goes to show just how disorganized and lacking in structure the whole place is in general, but the law enforcement is a whole other story.  Seldom does a day goes by where the front page of the AJC doesn’t have some sort of story that contains the words “shooting,” “killed,” “crime,” “South Fulton,” or any combination of them on it, because the crime is that out of control down there and continuously getting worse.

It’s the primary reason why I sold my house and moved away, and not a day goes by whenever I see a crime story emerging from down there, that I’m so glad to have gotten out of there when I did, even if it meant taking a loss on the house and going through a little bit of separation anxiety of parting ways with my first owned home, even if it was in a rapidly deteriorating area.

And as I’ve said numerous times, I’m still subscribed to the Nextdoor community online for my old neighborhood, because it’s giving me constant reminders and daily insight to just how much South Fulton is continuing to spiral downward.  I can see first-hand from people that still live there just how much they’re frustrated and exasperated with the escalating crime problems down there, and this is exactly why I’m not the least impressed by articles about how South Fulton’s law enforcement is helmed entirely by African-American women.

Continue reading “Not sure if this is a good thing to disclose or not” →

What’s not racist versus what is

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s amazing the lengths that people go out of their way these days for in order to pretend like they’re offended so that they can have a reason to bitch about something on social media with hopes that they’ll go viral and get 15 seconds of internet fame.  This week’s staged offense is a story about a girl in Utah who went to her high school prom wearing a Chinese qipao dress; it doesn’t sound like a big deal at all, but the thing is that the girl wasn’t Chinese or any sort of Asian descent, and suddenly she’s a racist, she’s culturally appropriating, and she’s offending many, many people.

Speaking as an Asian person, I’ll say this: a not-Chinese person wearing a qipao is NOT racist.  Period, full stop.

It also isn’t cultural appropriation, which honestly shouldn’t really exist in terms of clothing, because if the whole world wanted to get technical, it would be quite the contrary and the vast majority of the planet would be appropriating clothing that was manufactured probably in China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam or any other country where cheap, slave-wage labor is available.  If place of origin is what decides what culture clothing belongs to, then just about every American is culturally appropriating someone else’s clothing.

And historically, there have been litanies of women who have worn qipaos or other traditional Chinese garments who weren’t Chinese.  Whether they were celebrities or dignitaries from other countries visiting China, or expats living in China who eventually starting wearing local clothing out of convenience.  There is zero difference between people like these and a teenage girl wearing a qipao for her prom.  She’s in fact pretty and wears it well, and the Chinese originators of the garment would probably be proud to see it being worn to a meaningful event like a teenager’s prom by someone who claims to really love it.

Continue reading “What’s not racist versus what is” →

Greatest Royal Rumble my ass

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It took two sittings to watch it, because a five hour show is asking too much for anyone, much less anyone actually in attendance, but I just made it through watching the WWE’s Greatest Royal Rumble special out of Saudi Arabia.

Mercifully.

It goes without saying that I did not have high hopes for this special, therefore it was of zero shock and surprise that it turned out to be the mediocre, glorified house show that I figured it would be.  The events of Greatest are for the most part non-canon to current storylines, but the performers still have to put forth the effort and the work to next to zero story advancement to the rest of the events that are happening in current WWE programming, which is about as zero-sum as it gets, considering the sheer amount of time, resources and physical effort necessary to hold what’s basically an unnecessary show.

The matches were almost all terrible, the performers were clearly jet-lagged, a step or more slow, and completely uninspired performing in front of a mostly confused and/or apathetic crowd.  Predictably, zero titles changed hands, and the only notable thing that occurred in the entire show was the crowning of Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt as winners of the vacant RAW Tag Team Championships.  The rest of the card was underwhelming and underperformed, and the 50-man Rumble match itself was loaded with jobbers, no-names and C-listers who would otherwise have no chance of performing regularly on the average North American tour rotation.

Not to mention the fact that due to the antiquated misogynistic Saudi culture, none of the WWE’s women were permitted to perform, much less any women really be present in King Abdullah Stadium without the supervision of a man, which is a little bit of egg on the company’s part, as they could have really made a global statement by refusing the show in the first place because of their cultural restrictions but whatever, that’s Saudi Arabia for you.

Continue reading “Greatest Royal Rumble my ass” →

The whitest, most privileged feud since Duke vs. Yale

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Have your slave butler get the popcorn: the NRA is outraged with the YETI cooler company for deciding to cease their partnership as an NRA vendor, demands that their mindless, gun-crazy followers and underlings boycott

Is there anything more entertaining than two icons of things white people like feuding with each other?  In one corner, we have the YETI cooler company, the fairly young company that manufactures supposedly high-end coolers and drink receptacles that white people go gonzo over.  And in the other corner, we have the ageless and timeless National Rifle Association, the biggest punching bag save for the president himself for the left, rife with criticism for the fact that there’s a shooting almost every single day, primarily by white people, but that doesn’t change the fact that the alleged majority of NRA due-paying members are white.

And at first blush, it looks like the young white company has decided to distance its partnership with the company helmed primarily by old white people, and the old white people are none too happy about it.

Honestly, this does make YETI look a little more favorable in my eyes.  No, this isn’t going to make me drop what I’m doing and go drop $200 on a fucking cooler, when a $5 Styrofoam gas station box and 50¢ worth of ice accomplish the exact same thing, but it will take YETI out of my crosshairs as something to criticize because I for the life of me can’t comprehend why white people go so bonkers over a company that makes overpriced coolers and has the branding of all caps Arial Black on a black rectangle that makes me wonder what the fuck I’m doing with my career; yeah, it’ll prevent me from elaborating on that thought, with 700 more words.

But it doesn’t change the fact that seeing a good old fashioned white-on-white conflict makes me giddy with ironic anticipation at seeing two sissies getting into a slap fight.

Seriously, YETI vs. the NRA is the best white-on-white feud I’ve seen since Duke got paired up against Yale in the 2016 Men’s NCAA basketball tournament. 

Continue reading “The whitest, most privileged feud since Duke vs. Yale” →