Tag: racism

Justice for Johnny Tran

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whenever there’s any news story about any carjackings or truck heists on social media, often times I always like to drop a photo comment of Johnny Tran accusing Dom Toretto of narc-ing on him from The Fast and the Furious.  Context notwithstanding, it’s always funny (to me) that it’s just a picture of jacked Rick Yune pointing at jacked Vin Diesel captioned with IT WAS YOU.

Anyway, I was sitting in a boring-ass work meeting when I discreetly did this again while dicking around on my phone, but my mind began to wander about Johnny Tran in general.  And the more I thought about his character, in the grand spectrum of the entire Fast Universe, it occurred to me that not only did the series leave a gargantuan boatload of money on the table for not following up with Johnny Tran and his apparent Triad-like syndicate lurking in the shadows behind him, when the day was over Johnny Tran was one of the least-criminal offenders in the series and that he basically died (spoiler alert) for nothing, and there was absolutely no retribution for his murder.

I mean throughout the rest of the series, wars have been started over lesser beefs and conflicts, but somehow in the Fast Universe the story of Johnny Tran is immediately swept under the rug and upon realizing this, I cannot stand for it.

Yes, Johnny Tran wasn’t a squeaky clean boy scout by any means necessary; he liked to roll around with his cousin Lance and his posse in his Honda 2000 or on superbikes, and often seemed to be packing automatic weapons, trying to intimidate opps, but come on, the man was living in Southern California GTA turf war zones, man sometimes has to do what he has to in order to protect himself.

But as the backstory goes, his and Dom’s beef started over “a business deal gone bad” not to mention the fact that Dom had slept with his sister – AKA disrespecting his Family.  Sure, he shot up Brian’s Eclipse and blew it up, but that’s because Dom had neglectfully allowed him and Brian to wander into Tran’s hood, and rules are rules and consequences for breaking them are justifiable.

And then Brian sic’d the feds on Tran and his crew, because the irony was that he was in fact, clouded by Mia and Dom and didn’t want to believe that they were the Civic crew hijacking trucks, and saw them as the best patsies to take the fall.  At this point, Tran had done other than blowing up the Eclipse and some intense coercion to Ted at Harry’s for some SR20 motors a week before Race Wars that should fetch a pretty penny. 

The DVD players that Brian saw in his garage were legit, and the reality was that the only dirt on Tran and his crew were petty weapons charges and some speeding tickets, yet the response to Brian’s bullshit intel were humiliating raids on Little Saigon to bust Lance while he’s just trying to enjoy some pho with his homies, and the feds breaking and entering Johnny Tran’s home to falsely arrest him, culminating with the ultimate indignity for any self-respecting Asian child, getting the taste slapped out of him by their own father.

I mean, watch the clip; Asian dads rarely show urgency or rush any form of punishing, knowing that the anticipation and the wait for punishment is almost as bad as the physical act.  But Johnny Tran’s dad fucking ran to the front door in order to get in that denigrating slap, all while Johnny Tran is being fucking held by the cops. 

I don’t care what anyone else says, Johnny Tran getting shot and murdered is the second worst thing to happen to him, behind getting slapped by his own dad.  The fact that it was completely unwarranted and under false pretenses is irrelevant; had Johnny Tran actually lived, this is irreversible lifetime trauma that wouldn’t ever have gone away, and in fact it’s probably for the best that he died, because this moment right here is the impetus for Johnny Tran to become the villain the franchise wanted to him to become, and he would have overpowered every fucking sheik, corrupt Brazilian, Charlize Theron, Jason Momoa and God’s Eye with the fury of all of communist China* behind him.

*yes I know the character was Vietnamese, but the actor is Korean, driving a Japanese car, may as well muck up the entire Asian pool at this point, not like it hasn’t already been done to this point

Make no mistake, none of this happens if Brian doesn’t narc on Johnny Tran, because he’s too clouded by Mia’s hoo-hah, and it’s actually incredible that retribution doesn’t come more immediately, and that JT doesn’t boil over until everyone’s at Race Wars.

Of course, speaking of Race Wars, this is really the catalyst for the culmination of Johnny Tran’s demise; after Johnny Tran easily defeats Jesse and his shitty Jetta, Jesse should have manned up, handed over the pink slip and everything is finished.  Instead, Jesse reneges on a gentleman’s agreement, flees the desert, forcing Johnny Tran to get up in his master’s face, which led to the accusations that Dom was a narc, triggering him into a violent rage, and looking back at the film, it’s hilarious that of all the different ways that Domonic Toretto is antagonized by other characters throughout the series, it’s accusing him of being a narc that gets him to flip out in such a maniacal manner.

And we all know what happens next; Dom’s crew biffs a hijacking, Vince nearly dies, Brian blows his cover, they all show back up at the Toretto house, where a terrified Jesse shows back up like the pussy we all know he is.  Johnny Tran and his cousin Lance show up and light everyone up, Jesse dies, Brian chases, Dom commits vehicular manslaughter** when he PITs Lance into a ravine, and Brian murders Johnny Tran when he shoots him in the back while he’s trying to flee on his bike, causing him to crash and expire on the streets, right outside of a homeless camp under a bridge.

**An easy plot twist that Lance didn’t die, since Fast characters have demonstrated the ability to survive way worse physical traumas than wiping out off of a cliff, but that just feeds the Johnny Tran (and his family) are victims narrative

It’s astounding to me that in spite of all of the callbacks throughout the entire Fast series, some stretching even harder than the litany of callbacks in Cobra Kai, there isn’t the slightest attempt to reach back to Johnny Tran, or his apparent syndicate of discreet criminals.  I mean Momoa’s flamboyant character is directly related to the events of Fast Five, and when the series pivoted to this Italian Job like heist genre, it’s been Dom’s Family versus, well the rest of the fucking world at this point, but at no point have they even tried to go back to Johnny Tran.

Considering the huge reach they did for the resurrection of Han, I like to think it would be hilarious if in Fast XV, they pulled the same shit and suddenly Johnny Tran never died after all.  But he, and possibly his cousin Lance, have been laying low in the weeds over the last quarter century, waiting for the best time to strike Dom and the Family.

But considering they haven’t tried at all in 25 years, it’s probably wishful thinking that we’ll ever see Johnny Tran ever again.

In an alternate world, Tran has his own Family, along with Lance and probably a diverse cast of equivalents to Letty, Mia (who Dom fucked), Vince, Jesse and Leon and later on revealed that Ja Rule was the Tej Parker equivalent, DK was his overseas colleague, and maybe like Batista and Clive Owen could have been his Hobbs and Shaw equivalents.

But we’ll never know for sure, because we live in a fucked up unfair world, and Johnny Tran did not get to have his story ever finished much less told. 

Johnny Tran was innocent.  Johnny Tran was murdered.  Johnny Tran was the victim all along.

Justice for Johnny Tran.

Well color me surprised

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

NYP: Civil rights lawsuit accusing numerous prestigious schools of racist anti-Asian bias in their admissions processes moving forward, after (then) teenager with near perfect credentials is rejected from most of them

This is a story that’s pretty much as old as time, where throughout pockets of ‘Murica, there are some crazy smart Asian whiz kids with insane academic stats and accolades, that don’t get into the schools they want to, simply on account of the fact that all these colleges are so overloaded with other Asian whiz kids that they don’t want to accept any more.

It’s an ugly reality that nobody in their right mind wants to admit to, but the undeniable fact of the matter is that schools have quotas of all sorts, and when it comes to the numbers Asian students, it’s probably the one that is always got the most swirl around every single year.

That being said, when I first heard about this particular Asian whiz kid in question last year, I thought dang, sucks to be him, getting bodied by the system, after it turns out that after near perfect SATs and a 4.42 (adjusted) GPA, he was still turned down by 16 out of 18 schools he applied to, getting into just Maryland and UT-Austin, but not Michigan, Cornell, Washington or any of the California state universities.

Yeah, it sucks that he was just the latest victim to the dreaded Asian Curve™, but he was not an isolated case, and he more than likely wouldn’t be the last one to succumb to the sad American reality that Asians’ care for academics and education often times is diluted by institutions’ innate need to appear culturally diversified.

When his Tiger Dad refused to accept it, and went after it legally, I remember thinking yeah good luck with that, because ain’t no way in ‘Murica will they give a second thought to something that happens countless times throughout every single college admissions season.  Don’t get me wrong, I support Tiger Dad’s plight, but like I said, this is something that has been happening since desegregation, and sorry for being nihilistic and thinking change seems impossible.

So like the subject of this post states, color me surprised that it actually is proceeding forward.  This means little in the grand spectrum of things because it does not immediately mean that thousands of Asians have been found officially discriminated against, but I am celebrating the fact that this seems to have taken one more step forward than most  attempts have in the past.  It’s been a year since I found about it, so the legal system is moving at about the expected pace, and hopefully it will emerge again next year with an update, but I imagine at this point, Washington and California will be collating metric tons of bullshit, inaccurate data, and all sorts of subjective intel, all with hopes of overwhelming the legal system with busy work and ultimately getting shit to be thrown out.

But good on Tiger Dad for fighting the good fight.  Change doesn’t happen without people continuing to challenge the system and putting up fights, as fruitless and hopeless as they might seem.  He’s a better dad than I would probably be in a similar situation, but that’s mostly on account of my beliefs that college isn’t a necessary rite of passage for succeeding in life to begin with but that’s besides the point.

The funniest thing is that when the day is over, it really is kind of an emblematic battle, that almost feels like the impetus for the legal action has long been expired, but because it’s picking up steam again, Tiger Dad has decided to make it about all Asians and not just his boy.  Because after the 16 rejections from college, Google knew talent when it saw it, and immediately picked him up as an undrafted free agent and made him a software engineer, where he’s probably already making fuck you money without having student loans, so effectively the Asian whiz kid has already kind of won, and won tremendously in that regard.

It’s clear that Tiger Dad is this guy who legendarily believed:

It’s not enough that I should succeed – others should fail

And despite the fact that his son has effectively already achieved success from a job and earning standpoint, he still demands that others should fail, which is in this case, the college admissions system, spear-headed by Michigan, Cornell, Washington and the State of California.

It’s still a lofty uphill battle, that I don’t really think will amount to much in the end, but it certainly would be amazing to see someone persevere so diligently and unrelentingly to where it got schools to finally throw up their hands and simply admit to the Asian Curve, and make it official.  I wonder how many schools would rather pay to not have to do that, versus those who wouldn’t?

I don’t know why the term ‘human kibble’ triggers me so much

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The skinny: Man of mass efficiency meal preps in large quantity, Vice opines whether ‘human kibble’ is viable or is just another internet trend

I’m having a hard time gathering my thoughts and trying to articulate my words, but the bottom line is that I’m triggered by the phrase ‘human kibble’ and it bothers me enough to where it is manifesting in this brog post.

So what we have here is a guy who clearly values efficiency, not wasting a lot of time thinking about what to eat, and understanding the benefits to prepping food en masse.  What he basically makes is a gargantuan amount of fried rice, loaded with tons of veggies, tofu, chicken, rice and beans, and presumably, this is all he ever eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and has done so for several years now.

From the looks of the guy, whom based on his names is more than likely Korean, he’s in great shape, doesn’t look at all overweight, and is more than likely tremendously healthier than the troglodytes of the internet judging his culinary decision making who are mostly eating takeout sludge and closer to My 600 Lb. Life The 6,000 Lb. Diaries participants than they are to him. 

As mortifying as the thought of eating the same thing over and over again might seem to many people, it clearly works as far as this guy is concerned.  You’re not dieting for the taste… 

Frankly, I feel a bit of a kindred spirit in this guy, because I too also have the innate ability to eat the same thing over and over again without really getting tired of it.  A long time ago, I used to eat Willy’s pretty much 4-5 times a week for lunch.  Currently, I basically eat the same lunch every day.  Honestly, if I were still single and without kids and didn’t have to ever worry about anyone else, I’d probably have gone the same route as this guy, and been as happy as a clam in doing it.  

Add another idea to embark on if I were ever to discover a time machine and could go back in time to get ahead of the curve.

But where my ire begins is towards the people who have coined it as ‘human kibble,’ because I know that it’s typical dorks on the internet trying to get themselves over as inventors of clever quips, but at least to me, it comes off as demeaning, and even if it’s not its intent, slightly kind of racist.

Kibble is what was designed to the default food for all sorts of animals, and by denigrating this dude’s fried rice by calling it kibble is indirectly equating him to as being an animal.  Especially since the contents of his mass produced stir fry is all clean, fresh food, and again, probably way healthier than the people cracking jokes are eating, there’s something ironic about equating what he’s making and eating to something that is so default, for aniamls.

It doesn’t help that the man in question is Asian, seemingly Korean that doesn’t deter the racist narrative, because obviously there’s a low-hanging fruit of Koreans who have been known to eat dogs historically, and comparing what an Asian man eats to what dogs eat, dregs up this sour negative connotation that feels like it’s stemming from racism, regardless of how innocuous the origins of human kibble may have originated from.

Maybe this says more about me than it does about the masses, but the whole idea of people labeling mass-produced meal prep as ‘kibble’ rubs me the wrong way, and like I said, I’m having a hard time articulating everything the way I want to.  I don’t recall when there was a dude way back who invented a meal replacement shake and called it ‘Soylent,’ people at all denigrating it in any way, and instead applauding the idea and the massive savings in time they could enjoy by replacing all their meals with Soylent.

Mass-batch making fried rice is basically the same concept, except the end result is a hearty bowl of fried rice and not a viscous liquid.  The only differences are the skin color and nationalities of the creators.  It is nowhere near being the equivalent of kibble for humans, and the people who tried to get this to become the thing it already is, can all go fuck themselves.

When there’s an app for the commonplace

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

KRON4: SF-based dating site poorly hiding their objective of pairing white guys with Asian females in market where abnormally high WMAF pairings already exist draws massive online criticism

There’s a metaphor I like to use often, about a scenario where a hungry lion leaps into a herd of gazelle, but they’re so blinded by hunger that they can’t seem to focus on a single target, run around frenzied, and eventually all the gazelle get away.

That’s how I feel when I read this article, and I can’t help but wonder if the state of news these days aren’t really so much reports of actual topics as much as they’re reporting on the reception of actual topics.  Like I kind of get it, if I saw an article that was all like ‘there is a new dating app in SF that specializes in hooking white dudes up with Asian gold diggers women’ I’d just be kind of like lol eww fuckin white guys, but give me an article with the hook of ‘internet tears into new dating app in SF that specializes in hooking white dudes up with Asian women’ and now I’m kind of like rage?  What kind of rage?  And then I’m clicking the article and here we are.

But yeah, there’s so much to digest with a story like this that I can’t seem to focus and figure out where to start writing about first, because there’s just so many damn angles to approach this from.

Like how San Francisco is already a place where because there are so many nerdy white dude tech millionaire/billionaires in the area, there’s already a noticeably disproportionate amount of Asian women who land there pretending they’re not digging for gold, and the pairing of WMAFs organically happens, solely based on just fuckin’ nature.

Or how SF is such a smarmy arrogant place so reliant on tech, that they need to make apps and dating services and sites in order for people to function in daily life.  Like, white guys wanting Asian women in a city like SF should be as accessible as walking out the door and breathing fresh air, but these dorks needing apps to curate and do some of the lifting for them seems to be about as the most SF thing in the world.

Or just how gross white guys are, that they continue to fetishize Asian women as much as ever, to the point where fucking apps and services are developed in order for them to expedite their searches, instead of them waiting until they’re in their 50s and relocating to Thailand or the Philippines like legions of white guys before them.

Oh, and Asian women aren’t without criticism either, they’re not helping break the stereotype of Asian gold diggers who are looking for rich white wimps/simps/nerds to seduce and claim for their assets, and then entrap them either.  They’re as palpable to the problem as the white guys they’re seeking.

But like I said, so many angles, so difficult to approach.  San Francisco seems like such a weird place, and I frankly still have to say it’s up there on my top cities in America that I wasn’t impressed with and didn’t care much for.

Maybe they should focus on making an app to help rehabilitate the image of their shitty town, that focuses on identifying savvy PR people to try and take on such a lofty task.

World Cup 2026: the global heel turn of Argentina

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I thought about waiting until after the finals of the World Cup to write this, but I realized that it doesn’t matter.  With it being Spain vs. Argentina in the final, it’s basically a match between the Colonizers versus the Racists in a matchup between two top-4 FIFA ranked squads, and at this point I’d say that I’m pulling for Spain solely because I’d been hoping anyone at all could stop the freight train that is Argentina, but there’s little reason to believe that all the memes, narratives, accusations and perceived favoritism towards Argentina is going to let up at this point, and it seems like the inevitable is going to remain, inevitable.

And that’s what this post is basically about, how throughout the course of this World Cup, it seems to me that Argentina has gradually gone from defending champions and home to Lionel Messi, to this gradual, increasingly disliked squad that everyone outside of Argentinians and/or front-running bandwagoners are rooting against, and the deeper that Argentina has advanced into the tournament, the stronger the disdain seems to be growing.

From what I have been observing, it has been because of several factors:

  1. Lionel Messi is getting the Shohei Ohtani treatment, as in absolutely anything and everything he does is being glorified ridiculously out of proportion. A goal?  An all-caps Twitter tweet from every single sports outlet on the planet.  An assist?  ALL CAPS.  Converting on a PK from penalty drawn by someone else?  ALL CAPS.  His reaction after a match?  ALL CAPS.  Like Ohtani, I have little reason to believe that Messi is actually a horrible person, but when the media is forcing him down everyone’s throats, resentment begins to creep upward.
  2. FIFAvoritism – with each match it becomes harder and harder to deny these accusations, and the public have gone from what they’ve been seeing with their own eyes, to internet bean counters statistically making nifty charts to document the perceived favoritism Argentina has been getting as far as things like strength of schedule, fouls drawn versus the fouls they commit, how many times VAR has ruled in their favor versus against, and just the narrative that FIFA is doing everything in their power to tip the scales to constantly be leaning favorably for Argentina, be it referee selections, locations of their matches. As the tournament has progressed, we’ve the growth of numerous memes, with my favorites being VARgentina, Fix It For Argetnina and Get yourself a partner that looks at you the way FIFA looks at Argentina.
  3. Historical – One thing I’ve enjoyed throughout this World Cup are all the historical jokes that have been made throughout the tournament, poking fun at events like the Revolutionary War, colonizing done by various countries, and other historical factoids, shaped into futbol matches. I didn’t know this, but it’s through the World Cup that I learned that Argentina is where many Nazi/German/Axis people fled to after World War II, and the correlation many have pointed out how their futbol squad basically has nobody of any dark pigmentation, especially compared to the numerous Latin countries’ rosters.  And that perception alone is worth drawing a lot of hate from the internet and casual sports fans.
  4. THAT’S RACIST! According to my au pair, Argentina is a pretty racist country.  Their history of having racist refugees seeking asylum there probably has something to do with that, but there’s still a ceiling to her opinion since she’s Brazilian, and they hate Argentinians like I hated Marylanders growing up in Virginia, and how I look down on Alabamans as a Georgia resident.  But then you have the coach of Egypt throwing up the crossed arm X gesture, signaling for racism during a match, grumblings from players from Cabo Verde saying they heard some racist remarks, and most recently England’s Jude Bellingham angrily getting into it with Argentina’s bench warmers after what appears to be in reaction to something he heard one say, and given the fact that he’s a person of color, people are making assumptions, and perhaps my au pair isn’t just being a nationalistic neighboring rival.

But above all else, is the fact that Argentina just keeps winning, and it seems like inevitability that they’re going to be the first repeat World Cup winner since Brazil repeated in 1958 and 1962.  Like the MJ’s Bulls, Kobe’s Lakers, Tom Brady’s Patriots, and Shohei Freddie’s Dodgers, everyone begins to turn on the winning teams, especially if they start developing large numbers of bandwagon and/or disingenuous fans.

Circling back to #2, it’s not even like Argentina really needs any help from FIFA or anyone who may or may not be moving things around to ensure that they win.  Argentina is the defending champs and ranked top-4 for a reason, and even if they weren’t getting excessive favoritism from refereeing, they still have to make the crosses and accurate headers and kicks and get the ball into the back of the net.  They’ve been living life in time after 90’ with all sorts of late-match dramatic goals against Egypt, Cabo Verde, Switzerland, and England, and favoritism or not, they’re making incredible scores happen.

It’s funny, because from colleagues and sports fan friends I speak with, I don’t think I’m along in seeing the things I’m seeing, especially with Argentina’s heel turn.  At the same time, this World Cup has also witnessed the increasing love-fest for Mexico, helping eliminate decades worth of character assassination of their country, mostly from the United States, as people from all over the world have seen how vibrant, lively and generally welcoming Mexico has been throughout the course of the tournament, with many pointing out just how quickly things simmered down in the excitement department, once Mexico was eliminated and matches were no longer being held in Mexico.

Regardless, whether Argentina wins the World Cup or not, I think the heel turn has already been completed.  It’s not that people really want or care if Spain can defeat them, it’s all about just wanting to see them lose.  And I guess if futbol really did operate in the wrestling bubble, just getting people to have that reaction, negative as it may be, is still win, especially if it draws money.

Dad Brog (#170): year five of forever, the sequel

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today, my younger child turns five years old, and as is often the case, I wonder just where in the world has the time gone.  I can still remember the time before children where the biggest stresses and anxieties were planning a wedding after dealing with the increased responsibilities at work after a promotion after moving into a new house.

As cliched as it sounds, the last few years of parenthood have been a blur, probably amplified by the fact that I had two kids in short succession, and as much as it sounds like everything all one melded memory, I do remember most all of the individual details of everything that has transpired.

It’s funny because by default I usually just refer to my kids as a year apart, but there’s always this odd six month gap in between when my oldest has her birthday and the youngest is numerically two years apart, that always feels like an eternity where I have to mentally do the math that such is the case, and then #2’s birthday hits and it’s all like where has the time goneeee?

In any case, my youngest is now five, and back to being a year apart from her sister.  My beautiful, precious younger child, whom mythical wife likes to refer to being, the spicy child, her clone, her mini-me, in the sense that she tends to have adopted more of her personality traits contrary to my own, and quite the opposite of her sister whom many say is more like me, personality-wise.

Yes and no, because #2 does fiercely enjoy her independence, which isn’t to say that her mother, mythical wife does not, but there are aspects of her behavior when I see her meandering off on her own that I can see that reminds me of, myself.  As a second child myself, whether she or anyone wants to admit to it, there are always going to be some things that I really can relate to, that those who are not, won’t.

Like for example, mythical wife often accuses me of being harder on #2 than I am on #1, and I don’t entirely disagree, but it’s mostly because she’s more defiant and independent which often comes off as being obtuse and uncompliant to reasonable asks, and I apparently do not deal well with when my kids aren’t listening to me, especially when I’m asking for simple things.

Therein lies one of the constant struggles of parenting multiple kids, is constantly reminding one’s self that no two kids are ever going to be alike, and to be capable of being fluid enough to switch gears depending on the configuration of present children.

In spite of the very-white, all-rook-same-ing statement I occasionally get, asking if my kids are twins, in my eyes, my girls couldn’t possibly be any more different from one another.  They look nothing alike to me, especially since one has really curly hair while the other does not, and their personalities are also very different.

But regardless if my youngest occasionally gives me a harder time than my older child, I don’t love her any less than with every fiber of my being.  It’s the fact that she’s more like her mother in some personality facets that makes her perfect, and much like her mom, she might drive me crazy at times, but when the day is over and things settle down and get quiet, all I feel for her is love and the want for nothing but to be the best dad I can for her, even if I am wildly imperfect.

So from one second child to another, my spicy daughter, the wish for her to have the happiest of birthdays, and the want for her to know that she is loved, treasured, and most definitely cared for, and as long as I draw breath, I want little else other than for her to be happy and live a good life.

I love you, forever.

Revisionist history is fun not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know why I get set off so easily by news from the airline industry.  Maybe it’s because I’m constantly frustrated by the endlessly elevating cost of travel, compounded by all of the traveling I wish I’ve done that I struggle to try and make reality.  Maybe it’s because the industry is so full of bullshit that’s so easy to sniff out, where companies are getting richer by the second while consumers have long been left in the dust at being able to keep up with rising costs.  Maybe it’s because of years of having flight privileges and then not has me with some resentful shell shock at what it costs for the rest of the world to travel and it manifests as vitriol toward in the industry.

Maybe it’s just all of the above to varying degrees.

Anyway, I read this article about how airline travel costs aren’t coming down in spite of the plunging costs of jet fuel, and this is one of those situations where an explanation isn’t needed at all; most of us in the world know and accept that the airline industry is just a bunch of greedy fucks who will continue to increase and increase costs and that going backward is absolutely not an option.  But an explanation is given, courtesy of Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian, and naturally all it does is incite anger and frustration to anyone like me, stupid enough to read it.

However, the worst part is that from the time I originally read it, to the time I’m taking the time to write about it, the original post as well as all links, feeds and summaries about the original post have all been since edited, to make Bastian look like not quite the disgusting money-grubbing corporate asshole, because there was a quote originally that basically blamed the rich for why fares will indefinitely remain high, because the affluent don’t want to run the risk of the poors getting on their hallowed Delta jets.

It really was a sight to behold, a masterclass of white man CEO-ing, where Bastian completely dodged accountability, threw his richest customers under a speeding bus, acknowledged the class disparity in the world by also blaming the poors for existing, all while not even trying to stop spinning bullshit about the dollars and cents that make Delta and all the other airlines are grubbing for with every ounce of energy they have.

Revisionist history truly is an incredible thing.  Clearly, smarter people than Bastian quickly realized the disgusting horror of his original words and cashed in a whole lot of favors for them to be able to scrub the entire fucking internet so quickly to revise his words to not necessarily stop blaming the rich, but to soften the accusations that the poors are why the rich are the reason why fares remain high.

The funniest (ironically) thing about this whole thing is that it was wholly unnecessary for Bastian or any CEO to even pipe up about this whole thing.  It’s one of those things most people already know and have begrudgingly accepted the fact that airline costs will never, ever, ever come down because the industry, much like all other corporations, really like money, and when they get used to seeing how much of it comes in on account of a hike, they would rather eat their young before bringing it back down, regardless of if the reason for the increase swings back downward or goes away outright.

Not only did anyone not have to say anything about this, no airline really even has to do anything in order to try and placate airline travelers.  Like, Delta tries to justify keeping their airfare costs astronomical by introducing the most minimal of perks, like a discount or reduction of bag fees, or a tweak to boarding process – but only for those in first or business class, and possibly the less pleeb-ey pleebs in economy plus.  With absolutely zero consideration for the economy and Spirit basic class, whose nickels and dimes are the real reason why the company makes a gozillion dollars a year.

Yeah, Delta doesn’t even have to do that, because the whole airline industry is full of collusion, and if all carriers agree to the same uniform set of draconian in-flight privileges, then nobody is required to deviate from the status quo.  In fact, the fact that Delta is doing such is only going to piss off the people operating United, American and any of the other carriers that will most likely have to tweak their operations in order to fight for the five passengers per flight who are fickle enough to pick one over the other on account of such trite perks.

And then of course, these too will disappear in the future, regurgitating and recycling the droll state of airline traveling for consumers, and then the whole thing will restart itself in 12-18 months, but with fares another $40 higher across the board.  Because of inflation, fuel costs, too many poors getting on, etc.

God bless ‘Murica