Kiko

toh x omori

things that are terrorism:

allegedly shooting a healthcare CEO whose company generated more pure profit (not revenue, profit) in a year than the GDP of 94 countries, exclusively by denying coverage to people who pay for it

a 42-year-old mother of 2 using the wrong combination of 7 words during a heated conversation with a call center employee at a health insurance company who was in the process of denying her health coverage.

things that are not terrorism:

mass shooting in a Black church to incite a race war

going to a BLM protest specifically to kill protestors

a neo-nazi running over a crowd of people, killing a woman

targeting and killing 23 latinos in an el paso, texas walmart

killing 12 people in a theatre, shooting 58 others, rigging your apartment with explosives

a QAnon groyper killing 7 and shooting ~50 at a 4th of July parade

killing 3 people and shooting several others at a Planned Parenthood in defense of the unborn

stalking someone relentlessly and then killing them and their child despite months of the victim making police reports

any one of the 1,200 murders committed by US police yearly, the vast majority being minorities

tightening your border while ~100 immigrants (including children) drown every year in the Rio Grande

United Healthcare killing an unnknowable number of elderly people by using faulty AI to deny medically necessary coverage

Aetna killing a woman by refusing to cover her cancer care

Blue Cross killing a 6-year-old by denying her appendicitis surgery

Cigna killing a 17-year-old child by denying her liver transplant

the pharmaceutical industry killing half a million people with opioids in the name of producing revenues in 2023 that rivaled the GDPs of countries like Spain, Mexico, and Australia.

the United States killing 45,000 people a year because they can't access health coverage

as someone who has worked in amazon warehouses for many years, this is crazy like. oh my god. DURING PEAK SEASON?? LETS GOOOO

Then midway through the meal she leaned in close and said, “Sometimes… do you think they reuse the rice to make rolls?”

I turned to her in surprise and said, “No, why would you think that?”

“Well,” she said, “You know… those people never like to waste anything.”

We stared at each other across the yawning chasm of her previous statement and finally I managed, “Nana, that’s racist.”

“It is?”

“Yes. It is. Not all Asian people behave the same, and assuming they do is racist. Just like not all Mexican people are the same.”

She looked down at her meal, nonplussed, and I realized that her actual fear of spoiled food hadn’t been addressed.

I sighed and added, “You know, restaurants all get inspected by health inspectors and have to maintain certain codes. And the health inspector is probably also racist, which means non white businesses have to be even more careful. So the rice will always be fresh.”

She brightened immediately. “That’s true!” She ate another roll, secure in the knowledge that racism would keep her food safe.