Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Talk about making lemonade out of lemons...

Only thing I can say to this is, God bless America:

Antoine Dodson's angry, head-shaking TV interview about an attempted rape against his younger sister in her bed has turned into a chart-topping iTunes song and YouTube hit and made the 24-year-old Alabama college student an Internet sensation.
...
Dodson plans to use the money from the "Bed Intruder Song" selling for $1.29 a download and T-shirt sales to move his family out of the Lincoln Park housing project where they say the attack happened. But in an era when a viral video clip can rocket anyone to stardom, some suggest that Dodson and his family are being used and that his online rant plays to racial stereotypes.
Wow, I for one never would have expected that. It's only right that Antoine Dodson get the money from the song made out of his TV rant, of course, but  I don't know if I'd agree about the "playing to racial stereotypes" thing. We all have different ways of expressing ourselves. If that was a family member of mine that had gotten raped I'd be spewing all kinds of vitriol -- if, of course, said rapist managed to not die of his sucking chest and head wounds. I do hope Mr. Dodson buys himself a good-quality firearm to protect his family with, though -- and stays the hell out of Chicago. (Like I told my wife one night, "I'm sure parts of Chicago are really nice. Of course, I'm sure parts of Tehran are really nice too...")

Now that I think about it, though, isn't it ironic that people are concerned about racial stereotypes here but (as far as I can tell) never said much of anything about another, much more direct play on a racial stereotype?

UPDATE! Thanks to Dave at Silver Creek 78250 for posting this:


It strikes me as relatively tame, at least as far as playing to any racial stereotypes. Pretty cool. I got a huge kick out of it. ;-)