Tag: racism

Thoughts on Black Panther

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When mythical gf and I got to the theater and took our seats, they happened to be like in the third row and way off to the left.  Granted, theaters have come a long way to where it’s not nearly as bad closer up front than it used to be, and we had seats angled to face the screen that also reclined, so it could easily have been way worse, but there was a brief moment where I thought that it might’ve been preferable had we waited just a little bit and gotten more direct facing seats.

However, the following morning, I kept hearing from every interested movie goer that they couldn’t find a single theater that had any available tickets left for any reasonable showtime of Black Panther.  Showings were being shown as sold out just about everywhere across the Metro Atlanta area, and suddenly getting to see the movie when we saw the movie didn’t seem like such a bad thing after all.

Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts about Black Panther, and to cut to the chase, none of them are at all bad.  Full disclosure, I’ve never really been a fan of the comic book, and I’ve always held Black Panther on the tier of Marvel superheroes like Thor and Daredevil but still above shit like Iron Fist or Quasar, as properties that I knew existed, I knew their place in the Marvel Universe, but I just didn’t really give a shit about.  I liked X-Men the most, enjoyed singular properties like Iron Man and Spider-Man, and I’d been on and off with properties like the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. 

Needless to say, the prospect of a Black Panther film wasn’t something that excited me much when I heard about it, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe had made me capable of enjoying properties I was lukewarm about like Thor and Ant-Man, so it was also safe to be optimistic about a stand-alone Black Panther, especially with the exciting manner in which he was introduced in Captain America: Civil War.

I think it goes without saying that no single Marvel film has had the magnitude of hype that Black Panther has had, and there’s very obvious reasons of why such was the case, given the tumultuous social climate we live in today in the 2010s.  One of the challenges that I had during the hype, arrival, viewing and post-thinking of the film was creating separation between the film itself and everything that the film stood for in modern society.

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Exposing convenient revisionist history

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

With Marvel Studio’s Black Panther on the horizon, spouting all sorts of racial rhetoric about it being historic and things other than a comic book movie, Washington Post contributor Sonny Bunch drops Mjolnir on the truth of the matter: before Black Panther, there was Blade.

Obviously, Blade happened way before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and long before there was an odd existence of Marvel movies between FOX, Sony, and whomever produced the turds of Ben Affleck’s Daredevil, Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider, and the poor Jessica Alba Fantastic Fours that I’m too lazy to expend the few seconds to Google.

But for all intents and purposes, Blade is still a Marvel property, and therefore seeing as how the title of the film is named after him, makes him the first ever Marvel production starring a black person in the titular role.  As much as the internet and the rest of the world really want to claim Black Panther is this evolutionary revolutionary, in the grand spectrum of comic book films, it’s really not.  It’s just another addition to a library that’s way bigger than lots of people want to believe, for the sake of pushing a very expensive agenda in order to expedite the recouping of a gargantuan budget.

I love this article because Bunch does a great job of anticipating arguments to his article, and stomps them out before they can even be made, like pointing out all the other films, as small and as obscure as they may have been, being made in ages prior to the current internet, that have long beaten Black Panther to the punch as far as identifying black directors, black soundtracks, and other black things that are especially under the microscope now that we’ve traversed into February, the vaunted Black History Month. 

I hope he dropped a mic after this piece went to publish.

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Today’s forecast has had a high amount of white privilege

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

While I was in the locker room getting dressed after my afternoon workout, there were two guys having a candid conversation about how white they were.  They actually weren’t talking about literally how white they were, but the entire conversation they were having was pretty much explaining just how white they were.  It’s not that I wanted to eavesdrop on their conversation, but they didn’t make any effort to suppress it in a public area, and I couldn’t help but hear just how white they could make the locker room.

They were complaining about how close to turning 30, and how they were “old as shit,” and then they started talking about how their parents are just turning 60, and how their grandparents are getting old, and that the next visit to them might be the last, so they should consider taking a week instead of three days to visit them… because they’re overseas in foreign countries, because like most white-collar stereotypical white people, they come from some money.

And then came the comparisons to their parents gallivanting in Greek villas, and how much of an inconvenience it would be to spend time with family, when it encroaches on their time in which they’d probably rather be snorting coke off of hookers or belittling minorities; but who’s to say not both, and simultaneously at that?

I left the gym with a feeling of agitated disgust at perceived as white privilege on display.  Both these guys are clearly younger than I am, but in cushy corporate positions doing most likely intangible work on computers that is probably eons removed from consumers, but probably make more money than I do.  They come from families that are younger and way better off than my own parents, in their Italian vacation homes on remote private islands.  They’re discussing foreign vacation plans, and although I’m no stranger to international travel, I’d wager that my trips are vastly less extravagant as theirs might be.

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What would Alabama be without college football?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t really like to talk about politics, but I just read an article about how Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore was quoted stating something about how he believes that the last time America was great, slavery was still in existence.  The same Roy Moore who has also been in the crosshairs recently for alleged sexual misconduct with underage girls.

However, this is also the same Roy Moore, whom in spite of these discouraging associations, is not only not out of the running for the senate seat, but statistically neck-and-neck in the race with Democrat Doug Jones.

All I can really deduce from this absurd notion is that red state Alabama’s conservative voters are so against a Democrat gaining some measure of power, that they’d knowingly and willingly continue to vote for and support a pretty known sex offender and seeming racist Republican on their own volition.

This isn’t so much a discussion about politics as much as it is revisiting the frequent topic these days of where human values have gone, really.

So yes, the headline is a serious question: what would the state of Alabama be reduced to if college football were removed from the equation?  As fanatically blind and brainless as the voters are in the state, there’s no shortage of blind loyalty and prestige that the success of college football brings to the state.  But if the University of Alabama and Auburn University either bottomed out permanently, or ceased to exist, what would the state of Alabama really have left?

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Awareness is pointless without action

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I read this interesting article that brought up the topic that if Atlanta’s Jesus Sidewalk AKA the BeltLine, continues to grow without much regulation, then it will effectively re-segregate the city, due to the aggressive gentrification that’s it’s bringing in spades as it churns merrily along.

The funny thing is that this isn’t the first nor will it be the last time articles like this emerge, but it is admittedly one of the more data-driven articles, as it links to a 60+ page case study about the effects and repercussions of the gentrification which is a pretty good read in its own right.

The harsh reality about all this information is that just about everyone paying attention knows this is going on, and no amount of awareness of the situation is going to change the fact that it is happening, will continue to happen, and be a potential reality, because in spite of all of the information, nothing is happening to stop it. 

But that sounds about right as far as the objectives of the BeltLine are concerned – beautify, gentrify, and then profit; repercussions of any failed promises of affordable housing or the guerilla eviction of existing residents can be suppressed and brushed under the rug later, preferably one that exists in the lobby or the ornate dining area of one of the expensive buildings built along it at a later date.

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Tarnishing my Astro hopes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s no secret that I’m pulling for the Houston Astros in this year’s World Series.  After all, I predicted them to go all the way long before the season got started, and when it comes to sports fans, fewer things are more gratifying than being right, so it’s exciting to me that the team I called in December actually has a legitimate shot to fulfill my prediction.

But I have to say that even if the Astros pull off the victory, it’s going to be somewhat of a tainted victory, marred by naturally, some off-the-field shenanigans that the media has snowballed into a gargantuan deal that goes viral on social media and overshadows the event in which it took place, regardless of just how good of an event the actual event is turning out to be.

Because that’s what social media does, it ruins everything.

So the Astros’ first baseman, Yuliesky Gourriel AKA Yuli Gurriel to the hordes of people who don’t actually give a shit about baseball but have heard about this unfortunate story and want to be outraged by it anyway, was caught on camera making a supposed racist gesture towards the Dodgers’ pitcher Yu Darvish, whom everyone seems to be identifying as solely Japanese despite the fact that he’s actually half Iranian.

The thing is, I saw when this happened live, because I actually like baseball and was actually watching the game when the event occurred: Gurriel hits a home run off of Darvish, and then is back in the dugout.  Because FOX loves to pan cameras back to the person of the moment, they’re repeatedly panning back on Gurriel who is now back in the dugout, smiling and laughing with all of his present teammates, ecstatic at giving the Astros a lead on the Dodgers.  The offensive moment is all of 0.5 seconds, before Gurriel is back to quaffing his doofy bouffant hair.

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Racist double standards, #47

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SSDD: Ex-NBA player Kenyon Martin blasts current NBA player Jeremy Lin about having dreadlocks, accuses him of “wanting to be black,” Lin rebuts with kindness but also points out Martin’s Chinese character tattoos, owning him as if slavery still existed

Another day, another double standard where a black guy cries victim of ____, but has no hesitation of taking it out on Asian guys.  Honestly, there was a time where I kind of liked Kenyon Martin; I loved those Nets teams of the 2000s with Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson, and I totally pulled for them in the Finals against the Spurs where they lost in six.

Sure, there were always questions about his character, his propensity to whine and argue fouls and his perceived character based on the countless tattoos and questionable demeanor.  But he was still a really decent basketball player that was fun to watch, so I never had any problem with him, even when those Nets teams disbanded and he went off to Denver before I stopped giving any shits about the NBA in general.

But I guess I’m not surprised by him coming out on social media and blasting current-Net Jeremy Lin for having dreadlocks and accusing him of misappropriating black culture and “trying to be black.”  However, I did think of how stupid he sounded before I even read about Lin’s rebuttal, because one, he’s validating the oft-notion that black guys love to pull the race card when they feel that they’re being wronged, but have zero hesitations when it comes to putting down Asians themselves.  Two, dreadlocks do not solely belong to black culture, as I’m sure hippies of all races and colors, Jamaicans and any other Dutch or Latin cultures that utilize dreads would attest to.  And third, I astutely remember that Kenyon Martin has at least one prominent tattoo of Chinese characters, which by his logic would mean he’s misappropriating Chinese culture, thus making him a giant hypocrite.

Well, Kenyon Martin wasn’t in the NBA because of his brains; it just so happens unfortunately for him that the guy he was trading social media barbs with is also Harvard-educated on top of being on his former team.

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