Playing the race card?
 

If Rueben Studdard won American Idol 2, then WHY is Clay Aiken on the cover of Rolling Stone and why is he getting as much, if not more, press as Rueben? What's the point of having a competition if the winner doesn't get the proper recognition? Yeah I know it was close, but competitions aren't about who's close, they're about who WINS. Now I'm now making any accusations as far as race goes, but it makes you wonder if Clay had won would Reuben be on the cover of Rolling Stone? Would he be getting as much press? Makes ya go "hmmm..."

Re: Playing the race card?
 

Actually even if Clay did win, I'm sure Rueben would still get that kind of publicity. After all look at how Justin blew up after Kelly won during the previous season. I didn't really matter which won because both "made it."

I don't feel race is an issue here...

I don't think race is an issue, but I do think it's interesting that in the first season Justin didn't get as much attention as Kelly did. I didn't see him on the cover of Rolling Stone? Then again, I don't read that magazine, so I may have missed it! :)

Just because Ruben won the AI title doesn't mean Rolling Stone has an obligation to put him on the cover.

Agreed... maybe ruben just didn't have the time to do a photo shoot and what not with R.S. And since Clay has a large fan base, as awkward looking as he might be, Rolling Stone probably found that interesting.

Actually, I think RS came out and said they chose Clay because he had more charisma and was more open to talking about his life.

why does everything have to be about race?

it makes me crazy that if one person is white and another is black it's automatically race.

no...clay fits more in with the rolling stone audience.

don't make everything about race, it weakens the argument.

and what does it really matter anyway?????

That's kind of what I was thinking...how often does RS have African American artists on the cover, anyway? I don't read the mag anymore, so I don't really know....

I'm thinking this had more to do with plain ol' album sales...Ruben's numbers were no chopped liver-he kicked butt, but Clay's were higher...who knows.

Re: Playing the race card?
 

Because Clay is skinny and Rueben isn't. In an age when a fair number of "us" have graced the cover of Rolling Stone lately, I really doubt that this has anything to do with the race of the persons involved.

Re: Re: Playing the race card?
 

I agree. I wasn't going to play the race card, I was going to play the looks card. Clay is more photogenic, more suited to be on the cover of a magazine.

Great, now we're playing the weight card.

I'm not playing any kind of "card" LeslieAGD -- I'm stating what is a perceived "fact" in image based marketing campaigns.

Besides, the only cards I can play are "UNO" cards. ;)

Um, well, it sort of makes me mad that there seems to be this big to-do about how Rueben may not have "really" won. I keep hearing all this stuff about how people voting for Rueben were able to get through tons of times, and people who wanted to vote for Clay couldn't. My stepdad keeps going on and on about this, it's not fair, yada yada yada, Clay should've won, yada yada yada. But you know what? It's over, folks. Rueben won. He's damn good. Now let's give it a rest.

OK, I'm done. :)

I was using that term facetiously. Honestly, the reason people CAN play cards (be it race, gender, weight, whatever) is because there's historically been an issue there.

I think it's been proven (or at least claimed that it's been proven by every magazine in existence) that fat people do not sell magazines.

I like UNO. ;) Skipbo is fun too! :p

Re: Playing the race card?
 

AXO Alum is going to reply with her opinion, and will not be emotional and fired up over something that in the end does not matter a hill of beans to her life.....

I feel like (love those "feel" words) you are making an "accusation" (although using the term lightly) as to the involvement of race here (hence the usage of the subject line you created). We don't know what would happen "if" Clay had won because he didn't. I am a huge fan of Clay (he will be my husband after all ;) ) but I do not perpetuate the "rumor" that he lost due to the show being rigged or the phone mix-up. I do, however, believe that the show allowed viewers to call an 800 number or text-message their vote AS OFTEN as they liked. Which meant one person coulda voted a thousand times. However, when it comes to SELLING albums, I don't know many people who would buy TWO of the exact same album for their own personal collection....much less more than two!

So for the sake of "accuracy" it is my opinion that record sales, and not number of votes, that determines NOT the winner (because the votes did that), but the actual POPULARITY of the person -- more sales = more poplularity (at least that's the way I see it).

I am not trying to offend anyone on here - I am being very careful to choose my words accordingly. I simply believe that Clay has a bigger fan-base than Ruben.

As to the motives of RS, I cannot comment as I do not remember the last time I even saw a copy of one, much less looked through it. I am just not that into music (which isn't to slight anyone who is into music) so I don't really look through music related magazines. I would like a copy, however, because I would like to be able to show pictures to people of my future husband ;) !

Signed,
AXO Alum and the low-blood-pressure way of life....

I have read on various occasions that a few have stated that they are "tired of race being an issue." Well, of course, race WILL always be an issue. The problem is that we keep denying it and supressing our thoughts. As it has been stated previously in other threads, some of us have to deal with race issues every single day of our lives. Therefore, we become hypersensitive to these matters. The problems arise when those that do not understand continuosly try to supress the issue instead of embracing it and looking at it from that perspective. Yet, I digress.

There has been a massive outcry of Clay being the "real" winner of AI. As it was stated previously, everyone had free will to vote as many times as they wished for either competitor. However, when the outcome was not favorable for the majority, something had to have been wrong. Why? Why couldn't Rueben be the winner, fair and square? What was the deal with the wrong # thing? Hey, nobody told those persons who dialed the wrong to do so.

I don't think that record sales has anything to do with Clay's "popularity." Reuben and Clay were both popular long before they had ever released records. I do, however, believe that, on some level, the race of the two finalists did play a part, as it usually does. Clay's appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone makes no difference to me because that is not a magazine that purchase. I don't even read it in the doctor's office. However, I would think that the WINNER would get props BEFORE the runner-up. That's just my view. Maybe it is a weight thing, as it can also be that more White Americans read the magazine. Who knows?

I just want to explain why this is, to anybody else who hasn't discussed this yet:

The Fox phone lines were only open for three hours, which Fox knew from experience wouldn't be nearly long enough to cover the massive amounts of calls coming in. Let's say (I'm totally making up this number up) each phone line was able to handle 10 million calls per hour. Let's say 11 million people per hour were calling for Clay and 20 million people per hour were calling for Ruben (or vice versa). Either way, each phone number will only be able to handle 10 million calls an hour, meaning each contestant will get almost identical numbers of votes. Also, it would be extremely easy for Fox to rig the contest by simply keeping "their" contestant's phone lines open a couple minutes longer, which isn't something that anybody else would notice. In fact, I believe that when the votes were finally counted, the difference in votes amount to one minute's worth of calls.

Obviously, since Fox knew this would happen (the phone lines were also flooded in the second-to-last round, too) but didn't increase the phone lines' capacity, you can reasonably assume that Fox was trying to engineer a very close vote tally (if not rig the contest altogether -- although there's no hard evidence that that was the case and probably never will be). I think this is the reason that too many people are claiming that Ruben isn't the "real" winner -- the voting system was too flawed to give an accurate reading as to who the public really preferred.

(I'm not trying to be dismissive of Ruben here; the only episode I watched of American Idol was the last and I liked Ruben and Clay equally. I'm just trying to point out why a lot of people have been claiming the vote wasn't necessarily accurate, whether or not they're right.)

Then this is for you:
http://www.zooscape.com/cgi-bin/mait...oride=uno&r=01

</hijack>

Hmm. Interesting stuff. Honestly I don't even watch American Idol like that. I didn't want to make any direct accusations because there is the possibility of being hypersensitive (but being a Black man in the United States will do that to you). However, I do think that these types of questions should be posed. Our country is literally built on a racial caste system which has only begun to unravel with the past forty or so years (see United States Constitution ). As RedifinedDiva said, we keep supressing and denying our thoughts which impedes our social progress as a nation. Thanks for the repsonses though, I definitely think it is something to think about.

You just added cool points. . .you used my favorite word. . .facetious.

Who cares about Rolling Stones? The magazine sucks. . .like People. They always put the same people on the cover(the year I had a subscription, Brittney Spears was on it 4 times, I cancelled it and sent the last cover back to them in shreds). Try reading Spin(my personal favorite) or Vibe.

Besides, Clay looks and probably has homosexual tendencies which is what they are trying to usher into the music industry. . .acceptance(hence, taTu). So, who cares? Let them buy every single magazine in the store. If it helps gay people get into the industry, then, here here!!

;)

Since we are playing cards can we get some spades going on?

lol, j/k.

Honestly, I think the Clay cover had more to do with album sales. Clay's single sold more, and Rolling Stone probably took that to mean that Clay had more fans, thus more people would buy a Rolling Stone with Clay on the cover. I don't think race necessarily played a part.

Exactly, it's called selling a person.

See, that's what I'm getting at...RS used to be a cutting-edge magazine, now it's just terrible--it started heading downhill around '98. It's become a lowbrow publication that many serious music fans (read: purists) won't even touch. Having the American Idol winner (or runner-up) just proves my point. Maybe Reuben (sp?) feels the same way I do and wouldn't be caught dead on the cover of such a rag.

Come to think of it, I can't remember seeing too many black faces on the cover of Rolling Stone. But, I've never subscribed, so that may not be a fair comment.

In terms of the "contest," any debate on who is the real winner is kind of silly because people were allowed to vote as many times as they could get through.

What is definitive about that?

Kind of like what they used to say about the first Richard Daley administration in Chicago: "Vote early and often."

Maybe the next AI should be shot in Florida. They have a lot of practice at messing up vote counts.

Why was Clay on the cover of RS and not Ruben? Why is Clay's single selling more than Ruben's? Why does it seem as though Clay won AI on not Ruben?

Because Ruben's PR team SUCKS!!!

Where is Ruben? Have you seen him? I haven't...... Now anybody who read my posts on the AI thread knows that I was a huge Ruben fan. When he won, I was ecstatic. But now that the dust has settled, I'm pretty disappointed in ol' Rube. This kid seems to have no drive and no determination to monopolize on his 15 minutes of fame. In interviews, I've heard people ask him what's next for him and he replys with, "I'm just blessed that God has let me make it this far." Ok, now I'm all for counting your blessings, but I also know that God helps those who help themselves. Having your inexperienced brother and various other family members as your manager/PR team/agent is not going to work in this business. If Ruben had the right people behind him, he'd have been on a lot of covers, and done promotional tours/publicity stunts by now. Hell, he hasn't even been on the cover of Ebony, Essence, Savoy, etc... Jet is his only claim to fame :o.

I am not in the music industry, but even I know that it's all about hustle. Nothing's going to fall in your lap. So, I think that Clay just has more hustle, a better team behind him and a desire to milk this thing for all he can. Ruben seems to just be happy with having the title "American Idol". So, to the victor goes the spoils......

I bet y'all thought I was going to say it was a matter of race, didn't you, LOL.......

Heeeeeyyy! :mad:

lol. j/k

now i don't want to offend anyone here so i'm going to try and chose what i say very carefully. I really believe that for most people race is not an issue. notice i did not say all people. what i mean by that, is that although there is still and probably will be discrimination and racial tension for some time to come, most people in our society do not see a color, they see a person.

in regards to clay on rolling stone over ruben there could be many asnwers. maybe ruben was asked to be on RS and didn't want to. maybe he didn't have time, maybe his press agents or whatever just did not get on the ball in time. plus, clay does seem to be selling better than ruben, for whatever reason.

okay, that is all.

Re: Re: Playing the race card?
 

Justin blew up:confused: ? Seriously, because I haven't heard nothing from him since his appearance on AI. I take that back, didn't he and Kelly do a movie?

Anyway, I agree with Sistermadly, that Rueben's girth probably has something to do with it. People have been commenting on it since day one.

Don't balme it on Ruben! I'm sure he had no idea how the music industry worked before he won the show. Don't they have contracts from the same production company? So aren't they being taken care of by the same people? I hope things pick up for him.
I think RS probably chose Clay because he is more musically versatile than Ruben.

Just wanted to repeat this:

WHO CARES??

Sistermadly, Leslie AGD, and White Choco: we should all get together and play a mad game of UNO!!!!! :) Maybe bring some Rummy into the Mix.

On another note, I feel that although in some ok many places race is considered and issue, I doe not feel that this is what's happening right now. I don't really like AI, never really got into it (I was always a fan of the Bachelor). To bring race into the whole thing is not a great idea, because there are times where that's not the case. But there are some people out there who are sensitive to that issue (as they have the right to be). I just agree with those who say that Clay, has more of a fan base, and it just seems like he appeals to todays youth more. But, anyhoo I have heard Ruben's voice and I LOVE IT!!!! I think that he deserved to win, and he is a very talented singer.

Also, I am wondering why does AI even have a winner because the 2nd place person gets just as much publicity. Since that happened then what's the point for a 1st place winner. I.E. WHY oh WHY did Justin get a whole crap load of publicity, when he was in second place. I just don't understand :(

I didn't mean to offend anyone.
So, anyways lets play some cards :D
and that's my $0.02

p.s. PM Mama, I agree that if this whole thing was a race issue then Ruben wouldn't have won anyways. WELL SAID

That isn't necessarily true. The entire population of America was allowed to vote in American Idol, but only the editors of Rolling Stone are allowed to pick who goes on the cover. Just because America picked the black man doesn't mean the editors of RS can't be racist.

Actually, I don't believe Kelly and Justin received the same amount of publicity last year (except for the movie). Justin wasn't even able to release his album until after Kelly released hers.
Maybe they changed it this year because they realized they had two equally talented people up for the AI title.

Um yeah, I am going to blame it on Ruben and the people behind him. Winning AI was just a foot in the door, not a guaranteed ticket to everlasting fame and fortune. I totally understand that RS may have catered to Clay because he's more of what their intended audience wants, but there is also an intended audience for Ruben. BUT WHERE IS HE? It all comes down to marketing. Either you're going to quietly fade into oblivion or your going to make your mark in the industry. People like Jennifer Lopez, Britanny Spears, Beyonce, etc.... are not so popular because of their talent necessarily. It's because no matter what we read or what channel we watch or which station we listen to, there they are. If Clay and Ruben do have the same publicist, they are clearly favoring Clay. He needs to fire them like yesterday and find people who will work in his best interest. Success without a plan = failure.

I actually heard an interview w/Nikki McKibbin where she said they changed that rule b/c Tamyra was screwed over by it (the powers that be--and most everyone else--believe Tamyra should have been the true AI1). According to the rule, she has to wait until after Kelly, Justin AND Nikki release their albums--and it took Kelly almost a year to release hers...thus the wind went out of their sales when their 15 minutes were up. Look at poor Justin's album sales. Anyway, I think Tamyra will be OK, though b/c she has alot of talent & was able to stay in the spotlight w/Boston Public all year.