Tag: racism

Fuck, politics

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve made no secret that I don’t particularly care about writing about politics.  But it’s gotten to a point where I can’t go anywhere, turn to any channel, open up a browser or look at Facebook without there being mention of politics.  I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to seek out the news and or look at social media, because I just know that all people are going to be reporting on or talking about is what’s going on in the political scene, and it’s going to again bring that surreal feeling that this is truly reality, and will be for the unforeseeable future.

At the time I’m writing this, I’m back in Virginia, visiting my parents, on what is admittedly not a leisure trip in the least.  That being said, I really could use some distractions from what’s going on in my life and my family, and hope that others out there are doing more positive things in theirs.  But nope, people are using social media to vent about their disdain towards all of the seemingly asinine thing that are happening at such a breakneck pace, and I’m asking myself if the headlines that I’m being exposed to are actually real.

But then I turn on a television or walk past a screen showing the news, and the same types of headlines are being broadcast to larger audiences outside of my Facebook feeds.  Healthcare being repealed.  Women’s rights to be seemingly reduced.  Christians to receive priority about all other foreigners seeking entry to America.  A fucking wall to divide the United States from Mexico.

Seriously, how are these headlines factual in the year two thousand and seventeen?

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Sarcastic optimism

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So I’m catching bits of pieces of the inauguration throughout inauguration day; how Trump’s crowds are minuscule compared to the crowds of people who showed up for Barack Obama in 2009, how in spite of notion that minorities aren’t safe in Trump-merica, minorities are  still out amongst the crowds because people are vapid and narcissistic and just want to be seen at major events, and how along the outskirts of the inauguration there is strife, where people are smashing windows and police and Bikers for Trump are dealing with unruly demonstrators.

Despite the very surreal feeling that this is what the United States of America is coming to, when the day is over, I really don’t care that much.  Yes, the country is divided to a degree that I’d never seen, in my lifetime, but I want to continue to believe that we can get along with anyone, as long as we can respect one another in spite of our political leanings. 

Now that that sappy cheese is out of the way now, what spurned this brog post was the fact that I caught some of the inauguration whilst at the gym, since watching TV screens is one of the chief ways to distract the mind from how much running sucks, especially while on a treadmill, and I couldn’t help but notice Melania Trump, the now, First Lady, officially.  She emerged onto the screens wearing this uncharacteristically bulky overcoat/dress thingy that was a stark contrast to the bold shades of basic-colored dresses that accentuated the body that used to be in Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition.  Instead, she looked like, and the comparisons were not lost to anyone who knew a modicum of U.S. history, like Jackie Kennedy.

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Ignorant, but undeniably delicious

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

LOL’d: Texas restaurant under fire for offering up a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day special consisting of chicken, waffles and watermelon

Honestly, I don’t really care when people make the frantic claims that they’re not racist when they’ve done something that can be construed as being racist.  In the case of this lady out in the middle of the sticks in Azle, Texas, I’d probably chalk her up as being someone who probably isn’t racist, but simply ignorant about black people in general.

The fact that she didn’t seem to realize that offering up chicken and waffles with a side of watermelon was about as easy as a layup to construe as being racist seems to indicate more ignorance rather than malice; unless she’s playing us all as fools, is very much aware, very much racist, and understands that a little bit of a racial fire all it takes to weather out a storm on the internet, but flourish in business from all the free advertising that bad press, which is still press, provides them, on the news.

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Double standards in racism

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m 90% sure I’ve written about this before, probably when Chris Rock decided it was a good idea to make a really tasteless joke at the expense of Asians at last year’s Oscars, but just because it was sung and danced about before doesn’t mean it’s ever okay for it to be sung and danced about any other time.

So when Steve Harvey decided it’s completely okay to imply that it’s a Christmas fucking miracle for Asian men to get non-Asian women to date, on national fucking television, it most certainly triggers some agitation within my person.

The thing is, I’ve never really had a problem with Steve Harvey.  I’ve actually kind of liked Steve Harvey as a comedian; when he goes deadpan, it’s usually to good effect, and I’ve heard enough of his standup to know that there’s actually a brain capable of creating good material in that bald shiny noggin.  I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of what he’s done with the Family Feud franchise, because I think with him as the host, the show has gone very low-brow, and often reaches for the low-hanging fruits of lame double entendres, sexual puns, and it’s obvious the survey is only asking people who hang out at douchey Midtown bars.

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lol Curbed hipsters

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Occasionally, I like reading Curbed.  Sure, the writing is a little biased, the commenters are amongst the most pretentious on the planet, but sometimes, it’s a nice way to see other neighborhoods and parts of town that I might not be so aware of.  At the end of each year, Curbed does this thing called The Curbed Cup, and they like to poll readers to determine, what the best neighborhood in the region is.

Previous winners in Atlanta aren’t any real surprises; Inman Park, Old Fourth Ward, Kirkwood, Reynoldstown; these are areas rife with pretty successful gentrification and are appropriately densely packed with hipsters, new money, and hipsters with new money.  Last year’s winner was a little bit of a head-scratcher; the West End, which to anyone who isn’t familiar with the area, it’s basically the region of town that is literally on the other side of the tracks, that is full of blight, crime, unoccupied and dilapidated homes and more crime.

There’s no denying that the potential of the West End is grandiose if it could ever actually be successfully cleaned, reset, and developed appropriately, as it sits on a lot of prime real estate that the burgeoning Atlanta real estate market would salivate over, if it were remotely usable.

But anointing it as the best Atlanta neighborhood of 2015 was quite the head-scratcher, and I would wager money that bloggers and snarky internet commenters could write essays on how great the West End is in their opinion, but they wouldn’t be able to say NO fast enough, if they were asked if they would actually live there.

That’s the kind of place the West End really is.

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Profit matters

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is funny to me: Public outraged over Black Lives Matter merchandise being sold on Walmart.com

This is about the definition of an everyone loses situation.  White people are outraged over BLM crap being sold at Walmart, because they’re all inherently racist and don’t really think that black lives matter.  Black people are outraged over BLM crap being sold at Walmart, because they feel that the movement is “theirs,” and take offense to someone other than “them” making money on it.  Walmart loses because it doesn’t matter what they do, they can’t not get negative press, further reinforcing the notion that they are incapable of ever doing the right thing, except finding an endless well of bridges to burn for the sake of nickel and dime profiting.

For me, the funniest thing about this entire thing is that when seeking stuff online like the t-shirt, it’s the auto-population on the website that displays a BLM shirt on the guy from The Blue Lagoon.  He looks like about the last guy on the planet that would want to be seen wearing a BLM t-shirt, much less be immortalized on the internet as a victim of shitty code and lack of creativity and be screen grabbed as a fervent supporter of such “a terrorist group.”

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Rogue One’s new alien race: Asians

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is the face I imagined Donnie Yen making when being told that his character was going to be basically a blind martial artist.

Disclaimer: I will not give away any Rogue One plot, but I make no promises that I will not state any character characteristics.  But who are we kidding, you’re not going to actually even have the chance to read this until my brog is back up, which really might be never.

To cut to the chase, mythical gf and I went and saw Rogue One on “opening night.”  Frankly, I’m not thrilled to have to shell out $40 for movie tickets that cost more than a home edition would be, but we live in a world that puts importance on immediacy, mostly because people on social media don’t know how to shut the fuck up, and not seeing things the very moment they’re released leaves one subject to the litany of spoilers that internet blabbermouths are inevitably going to barf out as soon as their fingers reach any sort of keyboard.  It also sets the bar extremely high for me to feel like a movie is remotely worth the cost of admission.

Rogue One was an entertaining movie.  I found it enjoyable, and nowhere near as bad as anything with Jar-Jar Binks in it.  It wasn’t $20 admission-per good, but honestly short of live performance and/or sports, I’m hard pressed to think of many things that are.  But I feel like there was an evident amount of care put into the movie that made sure to act as an appropriate addition to the franchise while not stepping on the toes of existing canonical storylines, while executing creative ways to tie existing plots together.

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