From An Angry Man To A Meme

         First look, many would think that this is a typical comedy type of song using news-like settings just to attract people to watch the video. Comments posted on Youtube made us curious about the origin of the song and we started investigating. Little did we know that this is actually a real news report, auto-tuned into a song by The Gregory Brothers. In the news, upset with the rape attempted to his sister, Antoine Dodson, warned everybody that there is a rapist on the loose in Lincoln Park because this is not the first time rape attempts happens in the area.

His rhythmic words made the news report looks surreal.
“He’s climbing your window, he’s snatching your people up, trying to rap ‘em, so you need to hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husband ‘cause they’re rapping everybody out here. You don’t have to come and confess, we’re looking for you, we’re gon’ find you. So you can run and tell that, homeboy.”
        No doubt the music video is comical, but when the music stops, do we know what is actually happening? We found it’s ridiculous that some people had even try to stop the reports from airing in the news with claims that it may lead to stereotyping of African-American people. After the viral spread of Antoine’s auto-tuned song, some communities in Alabama complains that such interview, “reflects poorly on the community” and asked the Huntsville television to scrap the news off the television. (Click here to see what Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post has to say on this)
        We, however disagree with the statement. Let us see beyond the race and ethnicity. There is a real problem out there and it could happen to anybody and everybody. Thanks to Antoine’s video, the society especially in Alabama had started realizing that there is something wrong in their community. They even started doing a petition to the Mayor, Tommy Battle, called “Petition Mayor @Tommybattle to protect Kelly and #AntoineDodson and the Lincoln Park Comm”.
         The blacks have always been under represented in the media due to their minority status. According to Meta J. Mereday (2010), the lack of minority people as media owners contributes to the under representation of certain ethnic. This is due to the drop of readership and viewership of newspapers and television. When this happens, not only the media and journalism begins to topple down, voices, informations and ideas from the people are also lost in the media outlet’s attempt to survive.
        Because of this condition, the media focus more on the majority, which are the Whites. The Blacks do appear in the news but not as the victims but as the perpetrators. Travis L. Dixon and Daniel Linz (2000) did a research on this subject and according to their studies; Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be portrayed as the lawbreakers.
        Who is going to listen to the Blacks when they are most likely to be portrayed as the lawbreaker? When they were represented in this manner, the public will think that there is no use helping the Blacks since they themselves are the culprit.
With this video, highlighting the Blacks issues, people will be aware that there are more than just what you see in the mainstream media. We salute The Gregory Brothers (although they are just trying to make a comical version of the news) and Waff TV for their efforts in making the Blacks voices to be heard.

References
Mereday, M. J. (2010). African American Media Moguls: Delivering the Messages despite the Downturns. Regal Magazines. Retrieved from http://www.regalmag.com/african-americans-media-struggle-with-changing-landscape-a-432.html
Dixon, T. L. & Linz, D., (2000). Race and Misinterpretation of Victimization on Local Television News. Communication Research. 27 (5), 547-573. http://images.komunikasipublik.multiply.multiplycontent.com/attachment/0/RiWOkgoKCowAABYWXF41/Victimization%20on%20Local%20Television%20News.pdf?key=komunikasipublik:journal:99&nmid=25195083