Quote:
Originally posted by CrimsonTide4
After finally reading this letter in its entirety, I am APPALLED at what this company put out as a "rebuttal against a petition. To say that it is tasteless is an understatement. That letter is on the level of a pissed off kid or child like adult. There is no way a company, Black owned or not, should publish anything of that sort without having it reviewed for coherent language, coherent punctuation. Not only that but the "tone" of the letter is ridiculously harsh and had I not read it on the Soul Train website, I surely would have taken it for jest.
The letter could have very simply said:
The employees (or whatever) at Soul Train have received notification of the petition that is asking Soul Train to reconsider our selection of Ashanti as Aretha Franklin Entertainer of the Year. At Soul Train, we believe that our selection of Ashanti has merit based on her record sales, videos, concerts, etc. and her overall contribution to the music industry that Ashanti has in fact earned the title of Aretha Franklin and we are proud to honor this young artist. We appreciate the point of view of the inititator of the petition as well as those who have signed it, but we are going to proceed with Ashanti as entertainer of the Year.
Thank you
In that letter, they state their position, support it with evidence, and offer a conclusion. **Can you tell I teach English?** Also no where in that letter do they sound like the most IGNANT mofos in the world!! Nor do they dog out the folks who signed the petition or BET.
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....Just a thought, I doubt Soul Train actually wrote this. Anyone can create a link using "soultrain". I doubt Don Cornelius is that tasteless. That statement smacks of a hacker/fan....or someone from Murder, Inc's camp.
There is something I noticed about the statement. The author talks about the number of records Ashanti has sold. If that is true, then I think the integrity of this particular award is in question, since the naming the award after Aretha Franklin denotes the idea the award is based on LONGEVITY and SINGING TALENT (ala Patti LaBelle, Whitney, Mariah or Mary J. Blige, etc). It sounds like the award is based on POPULARITY AND RECORD SALES. Although Aretha possesses those qualities too, maybe Soul Train should have created an award based soley on records sales and named it after someone else? (But, isn't that what the Billboard awards are for?)
I think that if this award is actually based on POPULARITY and RECORD SALES and not the talent and/or longevity of the artist, then this becomes a question of integrity of the awards, plain and simple. For that reason, the "real" powers-that-be at Soul Train need to address this situation intelligently as soon as possible.