Tag: prejudice | A Banana Peeled

A stroke of good luck

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I became aware of the interview John Fetterman (running for US senate in Pennsylvania against Dr. Oz) gave to NBC. I read about it in Slate before actually watching the interview. What I learned from the article was that he had a stroke in May. He’s back and says that he can still serve. He is saying that the disability is temporary and he will be back to normal one day.

Let’s put aside the latter sentiment for a minute. Let’s start with the interview, which I watched once I was at my laptop. From the start, I was put off because the interviewer for NBC noted that things were very different, that he was using closed caption, etc. Why did she need to note that? I mean, I have to wear glasses when I read, but that’s not noted every time I talk.

I’m not going to go hard on her for mentioning accommodations or the fact that he had a stroke. By the way, I’m having to rewatch the interview as I type this because I don’t remember everything in detail, even though I watched it an hour ago or so. That’s one of my issues with my ischemic stroke (not sure what kind he had), by the way. My short-term memory isn’t as good as it used to be.

I want to talk about that for a minute. I had a phenomenal memory before my medical crisis. I could remember long conversations and videos I had seen in detail. I never forgot a name, no matter how long it had been since I saw someone. Now, however, it’s different.

I can still retain information I read/see, but sometimes I have to refresh my memory before getting the full recall. I don’t remember people’s names immediately the way I once did, and sometimes, I have trouble recalling who I told what to. I have forgotten words now and again, so when Fetterman said empathetic, paused and said, emphatic and could not be sure which he meant, I related to that.

Elden Ring–oh, fuck you

Posted on October 12, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I like watching Elden Ring content now that I’m done with the game. I tried to avoid it as much as possible before the game released because I wanted the full experience, but once I finished the game, all Elden Ring content was fair game.

My favorite is Eurogamer with Aoife and other-Ian because they are the least-macho about FromSoft games. Aoife adores them and is better at them than average, but she is not preternaturally good at them like many FromSoft content creators are (they’re good at it, I mean. Like really good at it). Other-Ian loves the games and are good at them, but he’s impatient. That causes him to die more than he needs to.

Aoife did not mess with magic before Elden Ring. She was very careful to say that it was just because she did not like magic, not that there was anything wrong about it, but it was clear that she did not fully believe it. She has taken to magic in Elden Ring, saying she feels that magic has been shorted in the past few games. Which, uh, she can’t really say because she’s never played with magic before.

Full disclosure: I have never played Demon’s Souls because it is not on the PC. It is commonly known that the magic in that game was broken and OP. You had access to unlimited mana, which has not been the same in any of the other games. I cannot say if magic was OP in that game, but I can speak to the rest because I’ve played them all. There really is on magic in Bloodborne or Sekiro, so we are talking about the Dark Souls and Elden Ring when we talk about FromSoft magic.

The reason I am beating this drum again is because I was watching Elden Ring content and there was one I had started watching and stopped mid-video. I already low-key didn’t like the group because they were aggressively masculine. Not to the point of toxic masculinity, but not very inclusive. Lots of ‘bitch’ and other such epithets. I pressed play to see why I had stopped watching (and for whatever reason, YouTube rewinds a few seconds when you watch a video again) and within seconds, one of the guys said that he didn’t use magic because it was cheesing. He wanted to get up in the grill of–

Embracing the Model Minority Mentality

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

My mom called the other night and wanted to ‘discuss’ an email she received from a (Taiwanese in Minnesota) friend of hers. Or at least I assume it was a Taiwanese in Minnesota person for reasons I will reveal later. It was about the George Floyd murder, and…let me give you some background. My parents, especially my mother, were appalled at what happened to him and couldn’t believe it happened in Minnesota. I will get to that in a minute as well because it also came up in this conversation.

I will say, my back was up at the start of this conversation because of the way she phrased her initial comment. Telling me she got an email from her friend and that she wanted to fact-check it with me didn’t set well. Not just because she could have Googled if she really wanted to learn more about it (yes, I know not everyone can Google efficiently, but you have to start somewhere. I wasn’t born knowing how to Google. I know I allow her to rely on me too much, but it’s not worth the argument), but because while she may have really been looking for a discussion, the way she phrased it was teeth-setting. I’ll give you examples.

She started by asking if George Floyd was Somali. That already put my dander up because why would that matter? She went onto ask if Somalis were terrorists, and I lost my damn shit. She began reading from the email without allowing me to talk (another of her tactics. She asks questions, but won’t listen to the answers. It’s fucking annoying, and I’ve learned to cut her off and talk over her. It feels rude, but it’s the only way to get a word in edgewise), and it was about how Somalis came here en masse when there was a war in their country. Yes, the history is true, and, yes, Minnesota took in a large amount of Somali refugees (same with Hmong), but the leap from that to terrorist is a big one. When I told her she was full of shit (not in those words), she said she was just trying to get the facts.

Uh huh. She’s a psychologist. She should know about confirmation bias. Anyway, I first tried to correct or repudiate her points one by one. No, George Floyd was not Somali. Yes, there are a lot of Somalis in Minnesota, but that did not make them terrorists. I did not want to get into the complicated relationship of the Somalis and Minnesota because she didn’t even understand Racism 101, let alone this issue. Finally, I completely snapped when she asked if it was true George Floyd had been in jail. I didn’t even bother Googling it (until later. I have an incurable need to know shit). I said for maybe the third or fourth time, “He was killed over a counterfeit $20 bill. Even if everything you said was true, did he deserve that?”

Tag Archives: prejudice