Super Bad:”It is our view that (with the exception of the majority of such e-mails received, which are in, full, support of our position) all such e-mailers should, not only be concerned but outraged, over the fact that a people, whose ancestry suffered 400 years of slavery, can be herded, so easily, into a, virtually, bottomless mud hole and be taught to sling such mud therein, on command, at parties who, essentially, mean them no harm, whatsoever.”
This response, one of two drafted in response to, and vehemently opposing, a petition established by a 15-year-old boy, Rommel Zamora, in opposition to the selection of Ashanti, “rising R&B star”, as the Lady of Soul Entertainer of the Year, is, um, interesting. Where Zamora’s petition, created on a lark, drew unprecedented, and possibly warranted, attention, for Soul Train’s selection, a questionable one if you’re of the mind that 18,000 signatures on this petition offer credibility to this claim, Soul Train’s reaction to this furor has been, to be succinct, unbelievably ridiculous.
In one diatribe, quoted above, the events of September 11th are referenced to both marvel at, and belittle, the 18,000 with “nothing better to do”. In another website post, these meager 18,000 people become a mindless throng of minions with little knowledge, or possible interest, in what it takes to create a show as popular as Soul Train, while also taking a dig at Rommel Zamora for possibly not being black.
Despite my Caucasian heritage, I think it would be clear that any type of publicity for one’s show, especially one so willfully marginalized as Soul Train seems to be, is good publicity, and certainly not worth the efforts exerted by their braintrust in concocting these mindless, misbegotten, comma-ridden missives. If expressing dissenting opinions regarding a recording artist of your own ethnicity can be construed as an interracial hate crime, let alone one of such heinous proportions as Don Cornelius Productions would have website readers believe, then, if there are any officers reading this post, and I’m sure there are, feel free to drive by my office and arrest me, because I’ve been a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad wittle honky.
(Special thanks to Jon Solomon for the 411.)