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This ‘powerful’ dad wants to protect his queer son. And the story went viral.

Trung Le Nguyen and his smiley dad are one photogenic pair hailing from Minnesota.

Photo courtesy of Trung Le Nguyen.

But as happy as they are, Nguyen's father is a worry wart, just like many parents.

He's probably a bit more on the extreme side compared to other moms and dads, though. When you learn their family story, it makes a lot of sense.

In a tweet that's now been shared and liked thousands of times, the 27-year-old published screengrabs from a Facebook post he made in 2012. And in the old post, Nguyen gives some backstory on his relationship with his dad, and why it is the way it is.

As Nguyen explains in the old post, his mom and dad emigrated from Vietnam in the early '90s.

Nguyen was born in a refugee camp in the Philippines before his family came to the U.S. in 1992. Speaking little English and starting from scratch in a totally new culture, the young couple had to find a way to make ends meet in their new home of Minnesota.

Photo courtesy of Trung Le Nguyen.

But after the family had settled in to their new American home and began feeling more comfortable, a teenaged Nguyen delivered some news that ... complicated things.

Nguyen came out to his parents as queer.

“They reacted with a lot of fear," Nguyen wrote. "I initially misinterpreted that fear as homophobia — that they didn’t understand or were afraid of my sexual orientation. As it turns out, they were just reacting out of fear for my life."

Photo courtesy of Trung Le Nguyen.

As immigrants, Nguyen's parents faced prejudice and racism living in their mostly white Midwest community, according to Nguyen. They wanted their two sons to know the language and culture well because, "perhaps then," Nguyen wrote, "[he and his brother's] identities would not be so politicized and we could go about our lives in peace."

"My coming out was met with an exasperation — a sudden resurfacing of a fear that they thought to be long-buried," he wrote.

He continued:

"Just when they thought their boys could be free to navigate the American cultural landscape as full-fledged, respected citizens, another identity pops up that would relegate their oldest son to second-class status in the eyes of a lot of people.”

“When we were little, they were worried that either of their sons could be the next Vincent Chin," Nguyen wrote, referencing the Chinese-American man who was brutally murdered in Detroit in 1982 because of his ethnicity. "Just when that fear subsided, it was replaced with a fear that I could be another Matthew Shepard."

Shepard was tortured and killed in 1998, at age 21, for being gay.

So, Nguyen's dad started having "chats" with his openly queer son.

"Before every time I apply for a job, before every time I go out, before every time I go on a trip, my dad takes me aside for a chat," Nguyen wrote. "He warns me that the world is a dangerous place for me. He tells me to protect myself, to keep secrets."

When Nguyen was younger, the chats came off as condescending. But the older he got, the more he appreciated why his dad felt so moved to remind him how careful to be in the outside world.

Photo courtesy of Trung Le Nguyen.

"My dad is a powerful man — a master kick boxer and tournament champion several times over in his youth," Nguyen wrote. "He’s accustomed to taking on the world as a fighter, and he has the scars and the physique to prove it. But when he talks to me before every time I leave the house, he looks so feeble."

"He’s not lecturing me," Nguyen wrote. "He’s imploring me. He is begging me to do everything that I can to come home safe because he knows he’s completely powerless to protect me like he used to."

Nguyen's brother and father, alongside Nguyen. Photo courtesy of Trung Le Nguyen.

Most parents worry. But it's different when your kid lives in a world that doesn't fully accept them for who they are. It's different when their skin color, or their sexuality, or their religious faith — or any other thing that makes them different — plays a role in how the world sees and treats them. And when a parent has the scars from being different as well, the worry rears its head a bit stronger, too.

The day Nguyen posted his story to Facebook in 2012, his father had yet another chat with him.

"My dad has no idea it’s [LGBTQ] Pride weekend," Nguyen concluded, "but this morning began with some sagely advice over coffee: Do what you love, and love who you love. I’m proud of you already." ❤️

Pop Culture

Jimmy Fallon asked people to share their worst first dates, and some were just laughably bad

Romance doesn't always come easily, does it?

YouTube/Twitter

As the saying goes, "You have to kiss a few frogs..."

Dating has certainly evolved over the years—we’ve gone from courtship being purely a financial arrangement (not that this trend has ever truly died) to knights jousting for a lady’s favor, to casual hookups … and now, romance is primarily found through an app more than anything else.

Technology used for meeting that special someone has become so advanced that you can base your search entirely upon specific interests. Like … oddly specific interests. Think a fellow cat person would be the purrfect match? There’s an app for that. Wish to “love long and prosper” with a fellow Trekkie? There’s an app for that too.

No matter the changes, one thing remains the same—dating is awkward. It’s got all the unspoken formalities of a job interview, disguised as innocent fun. The balance between playing it too cool and too eager is hard to find even for the smoothest among us, and usually results in total embarrassment. Even if we aren’t the ones committing those embarrassing acts ourselves, we are often the reluctant witness to them.

Terrible dates might not always be fun in the moment, but they can be just as important as the good ones. They can teach us a lot about ourselves and what qualities we want in a partner. And at the very least, they can teach us to embrace social clumsiness with a sense of humor.

Jimmy Fallon recently asked his “Tonight Show” audience on Twitter to share a “funny or embarrassing first date story” for his ever popular #Hashtags segment. The best part—some of these awful first dates ended in marriage. There’s hope for us all.

Below, find 15 stories that are truly the the best of the worst. How do some of your first dates compare?

1. "After a nice dinner, she invited me to her house. On the way up, inside the elevator, I decided to push the button to stop between floors and give her a kiss... She had a phobia of closed spaces and she smacked my face as a reflex, two punches after we were kissing and laughing.” – @PanqueAlgarvio

2. “His jeans were so tight he couldn’t sit down. Stood at a bar stool the whole time.” – @onlyintheozarks

3. “Waiting 4 my date when an older couple asked me for a ride. my date came up and said sure! We drove them home & they asked us to come in. Date said “sure”. I pulled him back & asked why he wanted to hang w/strangers. He said ‘sh@t! YOU DON'T KNOW THEM!?’ We bolted!” – @natashaham75

facebook dating

Talk about a fashion faux pas.

Giphy

4. “Before the date, we had been chatting about books we liked and I talked about a great book I just read. We went on the date. I loaned her the book. She ghosted me.” – @thenextbarstool

5. “The worst first date I ever had was when my date locked his keys in the car and I had a curfew so he had to break his car window out to get me home on time. Didn’t think I’d ever see him again but we wound up married.” – @csleblan

6. “First date movie ‘Basic Instinct’ not realizing how suggestive it was. We just thought it was a mystery thriller! We left the movie discussing how each character could have actually murdered someone. We're married now.” – @Southrnbell_Amy

black people meet

There are worse first date movies tbh.

Giphy

7. “First date with my ex husband was a double date with his parents. The preview for ‘Speed Racer’ came on, and she leaned over me to say to her son, ‘You know what your dad's nickname in the bedroom is?’" – @theostoria

8. “A friend asked me on a double date as a blind date with his date's friend. I went to the bathroom and came back just in time to hear my date say to her friend, ‘why do I get the ugly one?’ I said good night to all three and headed home, leaving her w/the bill.” – @StevenTrustum

9. “He loved cheese. I was subjected to a 2 hour conversation/lecture about cheese, and why cottage cheese is not cheese!” – @Optimist_Eeyore

bumble

I'd like to see this two-hour cheese lecture.

Giphy

10. “He took me to an Asian fish market. We walked around looking at live & dead fish for a while. I don’t like seeing dead animals & I don’t eat seafood. Then we sat on a curb & he pulled out a ziplock bag of pineapple for us to share. I don’t like pineapple.” – @markayhali

11. “My cousin set up a first date for me with a family friend. During a break from dinner, Mr. Man follows me into the ladies’ room, comes up close and says in a low voice, ‘I shave my butt.’ Can’t remember what I said in response but the evening ended abruptly.” – @carli_zarzana

12. “I once took out my high school crush to a sports bar and ordered the spiciest wings there in an attempt to impress her. Not only was she not impressed. The next morning I woke up with heartburn.” –@Dmonster38

tindr conversation starters

Talk about a hot date.

GIF

13. “My date showed up with his bestie and girlfriend, and they talked through dinner about people I don’t know. Walking to the car, he gave me a wedgie because he thought he hadn’t been paying enough attention to me.” – @surrealDazey


14. “I was taking my date home and was pulled over by the police for speeding. When the cop came to my car, she jumped out and told him she had to get home. She walked home and I never heard from her again. I'm not sure who's #WorstFirstDate it was mine or hers!” – @eastriverbear

15. “After an evening of dancing with a first date, leaving the dance hall, I had to take a quick pee break. Rushing out to the parking lot, I see a lady, I grab her and swoop her around, and plant a big wet kiss on the lips. She was another guy's wife. Oops!” – @seadogskamore

date you

Only Gomez could have gotten away with it.

Giphy

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American Cancer Society
American Cancer Society
Science

Meet the researcher shining a light on the “white lens” of medical AI in skin cancer prevention

How we can create equity for all communities?

All images provided by Adewole Adamson

It begins with more inclusive conversations at a patient level

True

Adewole Adamson, MD, of the University of Texas, Austin, aims to create more equity in health care by gathering data from more diverse populations by using artificial intelligence (AI), a type of machine learning. Dr. Adamson’s work is funded by the American Cancer Society (ACS), an organization committed to advancing health equity through research priorities, programs and services for groups who have been marginalized.

Melanoma became a particular focus for Dr. Adamson after meeting Avery Smith, who lost his wife—a Black woman—to the deadly disease.

melanoma, melanoma for dark skin Avery Smith (left) and Adamson (sidenote)

This personal encounter, coupled with multiple conversations with Black dermatology patients, drove Dr. Adamson to a concerning discovery: as advanced as AI is at detecting possible skin cancers, it is heavily biased.

To understand this bias, it helps to first know how AI works in the early detection of skin cancer, which Dr. Adamson explains in his paper for the New England Journal of Medicine (paywall). The process uses computers that rely on sets of accumulated data to learn what healthy or unhealthy skin looks like and then create an algorithm to predict diagnoses based on those data sets.

This process, known as supervised learning, could lead to huge benefits in preventive care.

After all, early detection is key to better outcomes. The problem is that the data sets don’t include enough information about darker skin tones. As Adamson put it, “everything is viewed through a ‘white lens.’”

“If you don’t teach the algorithm with a diverse set of images, then that algorithm won’t work out in the public that is diverse,” writes Adamson in a study he co-wrote with Smith (according to a story in The Atlantic). “So there’s risk, then, for people with skin of color to fall through the cracks.”

Tragically, Smith’s wife was diagnosed with melanoma too late and paid the ultimate price for it. And she was not an anomaly—though the disease is more common for White patients, Black cancer patients are far more likely to be diagnosed at later stages, causing a notable disparity in survival rates between non-Hispanics whites (90%) and non-Hispanic blacks (66%).

As a computer scientist, Smith suspected this racial bias and reached out to Adamson, hoping a Black dermatologist would have more diverse data sets. Though Adamson didn’t have what Smith was initially looking for, this realization ignited a personal mission to investigate and reduce disparities.

Now, Adamson uses the knowledge gained through his years of research to help advance the fight for health equity. To him, that means not only gaining a wider array of data sets, but also having more conversations with patients to understand how socioeconomic status impacts the level and efficiency of care.

“At the end of the day, what matters most is how we help patients at the patient level,” Adamson told Upworthy. “And how can you do that without knowing exactly what barriers they face?”

american cancer society, skin cacner treatment"What matters most is how we help patients at the patient level."https://www.kellydavidsonstudio.com/

The American Cancer Society believes everyone deserves a fair and just opportunity to prevent, find, treat, and survive cancer—regardless of how much money they make, the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, gender identity, their disability status, or where they live. Inclusive tools and resources on the Health Equity section of their website can be found here. For more information about skin cancer, visit cancer.org/skincancer.

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