Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) - hide your kids, hide your wife pt. 2

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

This week, it's Kelly and Antoine Dodson's sixteenth minute — Jamie interviews Professor Gabriel Peoples, author of 'The Forgotten Kelly Dodson: Viral Performance and the Interplay of Excess and Erasure' about what happens when someone is erased from their own story. https://gender.indiana.edu/about/faculty/peoples-gabriel.html Read "The Forgotten Kelly Dodson": The Forgotten Kelly Dodson Follow Antoine Dodson here: https://www.tiktok.com/@antoinedodson34See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth.

He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology is already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're looking for another heavy podcast about trauma, the saying it. This is for the ones who had to survive and still show up as brilliant, loud, soft, and whole. The unwanted sorority is where black women, fims, and gender expansive survivors of sexual violence rewrite the rules on healing, support, and what happens after. And I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leah Tretta.

Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. CallZone Media Hey, Jamie here. A quick note, if you're listening to this episode, this is part two of the Dodson Siblings series on 16th minute. So if you haven't listened already, please go back to episode one to hear the summary of the story and my interview with Kevin Antlon Dodson. Thank you. Hello, Hello, and welcome back to 16th minute, the podcast where we take a closer look at Internet Characters of the Day and us, and us on the Internet.

My name is Jamie Loftus, but if my mom had her way, it would have been Randy with an eye. Fortunately, she saw a porcel and doll on QVC named Jamie, and here we are. This is part two of 16th minute's first story about Kelly and Antoine Dodson, who first came to prominence in the summer of 2010 after they appeared on the news in Huntsville, Alabama. The story focused on an attempted rape. Kelly Dodson and her family reported that a man broke into their home in the projects in the middle of the night while her brother and young daughter were home. And the rapist then escaped out a second floor window

when Antoine came to Kelly's aide. Quick refresher, here's the original clip. And Mark, the woman, the victim tells us that a man broke into her house and tried to rape her. Her brother went in and he tried to help her out. But the man got away, leaving behind, though, evidence of his visit.

Antoine Dodson heard his sister scream and ran to help. Well, obviously, we have a... rapist in Lincoln Park. He's climbing in your windows. He's snatching your people up trying to rape him so y'all need to hide your kids, hide your wife, and had your husband because they're raping anybody out here. And if you need more of a brush up than that, please go back to part one of this episode. This clip was famously remixed in a YouTube series called Autotune the News by the Gregory Brothers and became an international sensation, with Antoine Dodson making appearances in entertainment for the next decade and a half.

including, I guess, here. You can hear my interview with Kevin in part one, where he reflects on his life prior to the news clip and what it looked like afterward and into today. But already, we're talking a lot about Antoine. And that's what I want to discuss in part two of this series. The bed intruder story was very quickly pivoted to Antoine Dotson, slowly edging Kelly Dotson out of the story altogether.

In this episode, I'd like to examine that more closely. And just a note, in keeping with my interview with Kevin Antoine Dodson, where he refers to Antoine as an alter ego, I'll be referring to him as Kevin for part two. I can't in good faith begrudge Kevin for wanting to leverage his online fame. Even if, as he admits, it wasn't always completely honest, because it's not his fault that he was framed in the way he was, or that he was essentially chosen as the protagonist by the media and by the internet. And what's more, he was the sibling that seemed more interested in capitalizing on this notoriety. While there's plenty of examples of the press being interested in Kelly, the feeling never appeared to be very mutual. I wasn't able to get in touch with Kelly Dodson, but if she ever chooses to speak on the internet cyclone that surrounded an assault on her in the future, that's her call. If she doesn't want to revisit that time, it makes total sense and people should respect that.

But the fact remains from the very beginning, it was Kelly who was consistently getting lost in a story that was about her, a black woman who had reported a violent rape attempt while her daughter and brother were in the house. I mean, she says so herself in this clip from Judge Jerry Springer in 2021. And keep in mind, Kevin confirmed that most of this was put on in terms of there being any actual conflict between them, but Kelly is very adamant about her part in the story being erased. And to me, it sounds very sincere. I want him to, like, put on my shoe for once. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know what I've been through these last 11 years since this attack? All it's been is Antoine this, Antoine that.

Even when I'm, when we together, we go out in public, we can't even sit down and enjoy our meals or not because why people want to take pictures with Antoine. Antoine, it's all about Antoine. What about me? I'm the victim. Oh. Yes, yes. It's like, I'm the victim because it's all, it's always about Antoine.

what house Antoine doing. He's fine. He's living. He's not the victim. He didn't get hurt. I don't think we should ignore it. Kelly's treatment from moment one clocks as pretty straightforward misogy noir, an ingrained prejudice and dismissal of black women. When this clip went viral almost 15 years ago, it was seamlessly accepted, including by high school me, that it was okay to mock a black woman quite literally going public with a rape allegation and turning it into this joke. few people asked if Kelly Dodson was okay at this time. I mean, I wasn't even completely sure that the bed intruder boxing match was fake until I confirmed it with Kevin. And so

it's this combination of race, class, and gender discrimination that leads to Kelly getting sidelined. And when it comes to what Kevin refers to as the character of Antoine Dodson, there's a lot of telling markers on how media from a white lens views and commodifies blackness. And in Antoine's case, black queerness as well. Because even as years past after this story, Antoine was interrogated about his sexuality consistently, as if it had to do with anything. There's way more to dig into here.

Unfortunately, someone way smarter than me has already written brilliantly on this very topic. So let's get him in here. Professor Gabriel Peoples is an assistant professor in the Gender Studies Department at Indiana University Bloomington and is the author of The Forgotten Kelly Dodson, Viral Performance and the Interplay of Excess and Erasure. And he's currently in the process of completing his book,

Go in Viral, Uncontrollable Black Performance. I really loved his piece, and I was lucky to get a chance to talk with him. Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness, the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories.

I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it.

They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught.

And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth. Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training.

These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming, and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to 16th Minute.

I grew up without a bedroom door and it shows in my personality. Here's our talk. I'm Gabriel Allen Peoples. I am a assistant professor of gender studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Also a DJ and I've been DJing longer than I have been teaching. I did not know you're a DJ. And as a comedian turned attempted thinker, I appreciate that narrative, too. So I wanted to start by asking you, what was your memory of the Dodson's becoming viral stars at the time in 2010?

You know, the memory is different than the history of the event, right? Yeah. I want to say that I was living in Atlanta, Georgia at the time. No, actually, I was just there. That's all. I was in Atlanta. And this thing just started moving online. Like, I can't really explain what was going on.

I received it from a friend, like, just the link. And I looked, and I want to say this was when it was on YouTube. And it was just the newscast. And I was curious. I was just like, and I think it was a summer. You know, I'm thinking it must have been July. or something like that. And I'm looking and I'm like, I didn't know if this was a parody or if this was like a real thing.

And toward the end, I felt like, I think this is a real thing. But I had to watch it again because, and I think that there's something about that if we can, you know, return to the confusion I had around if this was real or not. Yeah, but I just remember it being hot. And I'm trying to like maintain my AC control the bills and I get this thing and I'm like, I'm like, what is this? I look at it. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to remember this. Like I think I just set it aside, but I was just like, I was disturbed, you know, because I at first I couldn't tell what was real. And then when I kind of figured out what was real, I started to look more into it. So it was like the research started. I mean, I wasn't even interested in. research proper like that, I just had to know. Right. So this is like a 10 years in the making piece. I really appreciate it. Your piece, you really carefully traced how this story even got on YouTube in the first place, because this was before any news stations were really uploading

their own broadcast. Like, you know, someone ripped it, posted it to Reddit, and then to YouTube. In the news clip, you sort of break down a lot of. what is being done to already begin this marginalization process. Can you talk me through that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, for me, it was the visual techniques that they were using, which I thought were dangerous, particularly because the entire encounter was based upon the sexual assault of Kelly Dotson. And one of the things that happens in the news broadcast is that they zoom in to the location of the assault in a way that I guess is common on the news, but at the same time rendered or occurred to me as being insensitive.

insensitive as to perhaps the insecurities that allowed this to happen in the first place and also not being aware of how they are exposing this very location. So if somebody wanted to, maybe it was somebody different, if they wanted to try something out, they knew exactly where to go that, you know, had the thin veil of security that might allow them to get into somebody's home and violate, right? And I felt like, you know, everything that I've seen, it was like I've seen this before or I understood this about the people being represented already, right? So these notions around kind of like public and private around even just property in it of itself, right? I think has a legacy, particularly when we're thinking about black people in the

United States, who at one point were being insured as property. And so these kind of affordances of public life, private life, already, you know, there's a, there's a legacy that dictates it's not something that is afforded to black people in the United States. And it felt like a moment whereby it was a moment that was proving the connections, right, to those kinds of moments. And even still, right? After all of that, if you were to add up the amount of time that Kelly Dodson spoke, and this is nothing against the family, this is all about editing, this is all about WAA48 news, if you added up the amount of time that Kelly Dotson spoke as the person that experienced the violation, the violence, and the amount of time that Antoine Dotson spoke,

right, it kind of begins this domino effect that I get into further in the book, but that ultimately continues this kind of erasure of Kelly Dotson, right? Yeah. And I, you know, but at the same time, right, as a black performance theorist, I'm also very interested in agency, as limited as it may be, and the possibilities that Kelly Dotson is also very aware of what's going on and perhaps pushing back against being kind of like centralized, being made spectacular, particularly in her position as a black woman in the United States. Could you sort of walk me through how you define viral performance? I would like to say that that is not my term. So viral performance is, I would say, belongs to Miriam Felton Danski, who is really locating it within intentional performances that artists take that then spread uncontrollably, right? Either in terms of people hearing about a computer virus that got out, that got out of control because artists invited people to interact with this computer. then like spread a rumor, you know, it could be like even on that level, right, but it's about

intentionality and then kind of like the spread that results. And my thing was to, as I'm writing this, I'm trying to think about, okay, like what continues in that vein, right, when I'm looking at this moment, but also what's very different. And for me, that came back to in a large way, blackness, right? And so we kind of table something earlier in the interview, which is when I first see this newscast, I'm thinking, I don't know, it just feels too familiar. And I think that this was because as an African American in the United States myself, having been inundated with news media, I was familiar with these types of depictions. of black people in the news, almost to the extent that I thought it was a parody.

You know, you have to understand that, like, I'm encountering it like that. So then when I'm thinking about black virality, I'm thinking about how that knowledge, right, of this representation already existed for me. Right. This sets it apart to me from the ways that I might think about it as merely a viral performance. Because it's always, it's almost like they're already viral before you encounter them, right? We already, for some reason, I already know something about this. And then the thing happens. Then it spreads as a result of this particular newscast. Right. And it goes viral

in the ways that you and I have come to understand, right, particularly around viral videos. So I think that for me, black virality really distinguishes, going viral is an ongoing phenomenon, particularly when we're talking about representations of black people or literal black people. And so it's about, it's the way that a rapid circulation of black performance happens that spreads uncontrollably afterwards, right? And then it becomes commonplace as a result of that spread. So in some ways, it's very similar to viral performance, right? There's a rapid ubiquity that I think both of them share. But for me, viral performance doesn't exactly capture the ways that black people and representations of black people are already marked

before they ever go viral. That then marks them further. Also, black virality for me is capturing the black ways that performances go viral. Even this particular moment, right, eventually it gets on to World Star Hip Hop, it's doing some different things on World Star Hip Hop than it does on YouTube. And so, you know, it's thinking about that. It's thinking about the ways that death and birth are simultaneous in black cultures around the world.

It's an African diasporic ethos. There is no birth without death, right? It's almost like the newscast died at the same time the remix was birthed. You know what I mean? And then the remix died and then it keeps going. This particular performance, it keeps going, right? Again, black ways that we're experiencing rapid ubiquity when it comes to performances, right? And so that's kind of how I'm arriving to that, right?

I'm like looking at this viral performance. And I'm like, okay, there are some things happening here. And how do I count for the differences? We'll be right back with more of my talk with Professor Peoples. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you.

Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell-awaited. him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming, and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases. But everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA.

Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's crime lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases, to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness, the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads,

we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of family secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to 16th Minute.

One time my co-worker at a haunted hayride almost got struck by lightning. She was fine, dangerous job, though. And we are talking about the phenomenon that was the Dodson Siblings saga with Professor Gabriel Peoples. Here's the rest of our talk. You unpack all of the ways in which already moment one, when this airs on Watt 48, Kelly Dotson is already being edged out of the story. Because, like you're saying, I mean, Antoine Dotson has no way of knowing how this is going to be edited. I mean, the editor could have not, you know, could have included one line from him. They could have included nothing and just totally centered Kelly.

Like there's so many different ways it could have gone. For you, why does the news lens switch to Antoine? And why does that sort of, at least in my perspective, continue doubling down and down and down because by the time you get to the remix, Kelly is barely there. Like she, it's just one sentence from her. Right. And even by the time we get to that Reddit meme, you don't even see her. Right.

There's a, I mean, a lot of this is about legacy, right? Which, again, like, is another way that I'm, or another thing that I use, right? So ghetto witness, right, is about how particular kinds of people are found to give testimony to a trauma that they've witnessed or experienced, right? And the news seeks folks out, right? And I think that there is a way that me saying that before, right, it helps me to think about legacy in this moment, right? So you have how black people, particularly how black gay men have been used as comic relief. So that's happening. So let's hold that in our minds.

And then at the same time, you have this legacy of black women being inviolable subjects, right? So folks who cannot be violated, right, which is also tethered to these toxic ideas about their own sexuality and the ways that they are imagined to be particularly licentious. therefore a rape can't happen. And it's present in fiction and nonfiction, right, in terms of the ways that black women have been historically, right, noted or recorded in particular kinds of instances, the ways that they've been figuratively imagined that are also linked to those real historical instances of being inviolable subject. also tethered, right, to the ways that black men are seen as particularly endowed. Angela Davis really helps us to point to these connections. And there's, so you have all of these kind of legacies happening, right? This is the knowledge, if you will, that's being brought to this moment before it even goes viral. When it truly clicked for me was when you

learned that this first kind of took off on R slash funny, where, you know, that so clearly demonstrates how seriously a good portion of the internet audience at this time was taking Kelly and taking the allegation, was it went from zero to funny because of, and a lot of that does seem to have to do with how the broadcast was edited. Yeah, within this, you know, would have said to be a community of communities, right? One of these communities is the subreddit funny. And whoever saw this while 48 newscast somehow digitized it and put it online in this subreddit, right?

Because they thought it was funny. I just had all these moments of pause where I was like, okay, slow down. Let's slow down and look at what. is happening. There's so much, right? So even even kind of like in terms of what was unfolding that day, I came to understand, I think just minimally, right, Antoine Dotson's sister Kelly Dotson being violated in the same home that they were both in. It was enough for Antoine to want to respond the way that he responded. But then on top of that, There were things happening around the scene of the interview that even further gave him

this kind of like righteous indignation that he has. And it comes back to something that you mentioned, right? It's just like people not being believed, right? Particularly black women not being believed when they experience sexual violence. Right. So there was another woman, I'm assuming, she lived in the community, who was basically saying this never happened in our community. Okay, does that negate the reality that I experience, right? That's what I'm thinking.

I'm imagining, right, these might be some thoughts going on. Yeah. So, and then furthermore, even the people in the complex, in the housing complex, they didn't take it seriously either, right? so they brought this to the attention of I mean it wasn't like a front desk but it was like the main admin I mean they kind of they kind of laughed in their faces so by the time while 48 news you know is like okay let's interview you they have spoken to the housing administration they already filed a police report at some point this other lady pops up oh this is never this never happened in our community I mean you didn't really need a lot of lot more to make that more of a, you know, making more of a powder keg. And so, anyway, I'm thinking about the viral afterlife as connected to black virality, right? Because again, like I said, there's this kind of like cosmographic understanding of life in various religious and spiritual practices throughout the world where it's kind of like you die in the terrestrial and your birth

in the spiritual at the same exact time, right? And I'm taking, I'm taking this knowledge and I'm thinking about, like, how is this playing out in this realm of virality, right? Yeah. And so it's kind of like I pointed to that fire fraud moment because this is a point where, like with the viral afterlife, you're talking about the ways that something goes viral, perhaps reaches a peak or a climax, and then, And it's like we almost don't hear about it again.

But then we do. And it might be in a different form, right? And sometimes what we hear about after the climax goes beyond the climax. And sometimes it doesn't. And so viral afterlife is taking account of that. You can say, I'm giving folks language to think about, you know, how can we think about, like, this thing that's been rapidly circuit. that a lot of people knew about at a particular moment in time, and then that thing kind of like comes back up years later. And when that thing is black, it just adds, it adds to

the layers we have to dissect to understand what is really, what is really happening in front of us. And I explore this a bit more at length in the book, even in particular relationship to this moment that we're talking about on the newscast, right? So the Gregory brothers, they continued in the same vein of kind of like finding these folks who are giving testimony in their own sincere kind of way, auto-tuning them, and then, you know, just putting it out, broadcasting themselves, right, as YouTube encourages you to do. And so I was shocked to see that they were on the credits for the unbreakable Kimmy Smith.

I know. Yeah. If this is not the exact same thing, right, but in a completely fictional sense, not to mention the girl that's found underground is in this cult in Indiana, right? Oh, Indiana. It all connects. But, you know, it's like when she emerges,

a black man sees her, right? And then the news just, just goes to find this black man, and then his vocals turn from, I think they're immediately auto-tuned, if I'm not mistaken. Especially because I didn't realize until I was researching this episode, that that theme song was literally made by the Gregory Brothers, so it couldn't be clearer what's happening there. And you're pointing to another thing, right, which is the black ways of going viral, right?

But there's a certain thing around vernacular, not to necessarily tell. tie it, tie vernacular in a very particular way to black people, because as we know, that's a fiction anyway, right? Like, not only can people style switch when they speak, but oftentimes this stuff is cultural in terms of like how people sound, right? But if he starts that thing off by saying what had happened was, there's a certain kind of like, I mean, way that we have to understand that as being a black vernacular phenomenon. I mean, there is such a thing as ebonics, right? They teach, I don't know if they still teach it, but when I went to the University of Michigan

as an undergrad, they were teaching an abonics class, and one of my friends took it. And she basically told me that everybody that didn't grow up around black cultures were failing that class horribly, right? They couldn't understand the formulas and the mathematics, the syntax. these black ways of going viral actually become less of a theory and more of a reality when you start to get into the ways people are commenting on these viral performances, which you'll often run into on comment walls. Something else I get into in the book.

The article, though, I'm really trying to just focus on before any of this travels, right? Because black virality is also about how black virality. black performance travels. What all is happening? You know, so yeah, how can we, before we get there, if we slow this moment down, what all is happening? And then once we do that, we kind of understand how the rest of it can materialize, which you don't know unless you slow down this moment in the beginning, right? Right. So slowing it down, it was like, I found some stuff on Facebook, right? Where Antoine Dawson was just like, do y'all think this is a joke and that gave me pause and it also it reinforced the the feeling that I was getting like when then running across the auto tune video I was just like something felt very about it actually to me yeah and so it was reaffirming to also notice that Antoine Dotson found something in that too right but Antoine

as a businessman. Yeah. So, I mean, he's literally in community college taking, I'm measuring in business, I want to say. So it's like, I think, I think he was wrestling with multiple things. It was like recognizing the kind of moment that this could be, which he wouldn't be the first. Right.

Even in that reference that I gave you about Leprechaun and Mobile, I think it was Mobile Alabama, where there's these newscasters that go into this neighborhood interviewing so many people in the neighborhood and this guy's like this is the agency right that I'm that I'm wrestling with particularly when we're thinking about black virality it's like black people they they know the game right like you know if they're living in subsidized housing at this moment in their life there might be a point of recognizing hey this this might be a moment where we can leverage it to get out of here right right right to much

chagrin of, you know, a lot of other folks that get mentioned in, you know, as this thing unfolds, right? The random black folks like me who are encountering this and they're like, for whatever reason, they're feeling embarrassed, right? And so I'm inquiring about that. Why are you, like, why are you feeling embarrassed? Like, I'm trying to think about this, right? But it's like, when you've seen this particular scenario over and over and over again, there's a point where you tire of it. There's a point where you recognize. what it is that is attempting to be done and capitalized on, it's also appropriative, right? Because it's kind of like this recognition of the currency of blackness, but almost at the expense

of the ways that we, the rich ways that we can understand black people. And so it's hard to wrestle with because on an individual level, it's like, hey, I can use this to get out of here. on a collective level, there's also that recognition that, like, they're taking this to be a joke, aren't they? Right. You know, but there's always kind of like that cleverness, right? Of like, okay, well, how can I use this to my advantage? This is, this is the black objecthood of this moment, right? The ways that people go viral are going to constantly increase, right? The ways that black virality is experienced is going to constantly increase or change, right? The mechanisms, there's always a new mechanism being created to allow this. Yet until we kind of grapple with the very things that are, you can say, variables, if you will, in that virality, in our regular, everyday IRA, right, is not going to really shift. Some might say that it's gotten worse. Is there anything I didn't ask or touch on about Kelly Dodson and this story in particular that you would like to touch on.

I mean, for me, I find it intriguing that just as far as everything you've come across as well, to a large extent, Kelly Dotson tries to remain out of the spotlight, just because that's what I was picking up on myself, right? And I was, you know, I just wanted to emphasize that this, too, is feminism, is black feminism, right? the recognition of the power of the camera, if you will, but also the recognition of everything that's happening outside of it and the strength of that, right, and perhaps remaining outside of the camera

in order to avoid some of the pitfalls of being made spectacular, right, of which there's so many examples of. I think there was a moment, right, where it was important to voice what happened. It was confronting something, right? It was, I mean, the ways that sexual violence oftentimes is silenced and subjugated in order for the collective in terms of a particular black community, a particular black family, in order for that collective to not kind of fall into these already preexisting. stereotypes whereby people are already thinking they're hypersexual and they're criminal, right? And this is a moment where that family stood up to that very tension. And I think that's important, you know, because a lot of things happen as a result and people saw that, okay, this is a phenomenon in our

community right now. It tethered previous violences that were happening. in Huntsville, Alabama, in that particular subsidized housing complex, and it kind of like gesture toward the other folks that exist out there who are actually being like experiencing rape, right, or sexual assault and can't or won't for various reasons express that violence that they encounter. And it's kind of like an example of like what happens when you do, right? you might be able to get extricate yourself from that moment of violence or from that scene of violence right that environment that enabled the violence you might also be able to in staying out of the spotlight suggest something about your awareness of what the spotlight can do to

black bodies right and what it has done my book is called going viral uncontrollable black performance and is going to be published by the University of Illinois Press in their new black studies series. And it essentially covers black people or representations of black people that have gone viral between the 18th century to the present. And it thinks about what they do when reaching those peak levels of visibility with that visibility, right? And so how they can actually leverage.

it for liberation in different kinds of ways on individual levels and on collective levels. And I go from the conceptual photography and images and even jewelry making of Hank Willis Thomas, the presence of and the performance of Radio Rahim and do the right thing, everything we just talked about, but a lot more in reference to the newscast in 2010 that went viral, the remix video attached to that, and then kind of like the viral afterlife of all of that moment. I don't know. Putting this episode together has been really fun and really challenging, and I'm just so glad to have your voice in it. Thank you so much to Professor Peoples for speaking with me, and I cannot wait for when his book, Goin Viral, Uncontrollable Black Performance

releases in spring 2025. I wanted to start with the Dodson story. because it marked a moment that's pretty rare on the internet these days. A genuine monocultural moment that took these normal people and thrust them into the spotlight. How this happens is always telling about the time and place you're in, and not just how the public reacts, but how the subjects themselves react. Because this level of sudden notoriety is just not something humans were made to be able to process. And even though the stories can feel a little dated, they bring out what Professor Peoples was taught.

about these age-old prejudices and dismissals. Kelly's erasure from the story is not something unique through the 21st century. It's built on centuries of dismissal of black women. Antoine's elevation is not something unique to the 21st century. The way black queer men have been treated by the public has always been pointed. And seeing him have the reins on his own narrative after all these years makes a special kind of person. And so long may the Dodson siblings reign. even if that means different things for each of them.

Dodson's, your 16th minute ends now. Files done. Okay, so at the end of every single episode of this show, I just want to take a moment for whatever I want, whatever feels good, whatever feels right. And so for our inaugural moment of whatever I want, here are my parents trying to explain what they think this show is about. Enjoy. See you next week.

What if I asked you to describe what you think the show is about? Can you do that? I believe the 16th minute refers to the widely known concept of 15 minutes of fame. But when that light begins to douse, what are they doing thereafter? Great. Great answer. Are you prepared to give an answer? Okay, so in your mind, what is 16th minute the show about? Again, that whole 15 minutes, everyone's famous, 15 minutes.

Or so said Andy Warhol, we think. But sometimes it lasts more. Maybe it goes into a 16th minute or 17th. Maybe that's the show. Well, 17th would be kind of someone else's business, but I'm trying to... 16th feels that's the one I'm in charge of. All right, great answers, everybody.

Great answers. Okay, see you next week. 16th Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and IHeart Radio. It is written, hosted, and produced by me, Jamie Laughness. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichten and Robert Evans. The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme song is by Sad 13. And pet shout-outs to our dog producer Anderson, my cats flea and Casper, and my pet rock bird who will outlive us all.

Bye. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Black Business Month, and Money and Wealth podcast with John Hope Bryant is tapping in. I'm breaking down how to build wealth, create opportunities, and move from surviving to thriving. It's time to talk about ownership, equity, and everything in between.

Black and brown communities have historically been last in life. Let me just say this. AI is moving faster than civil rights legislation ever did. Listen to Money and Wealth from the Black Effect Podcast Network on IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell. And the DNA holds the truth.

He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology is already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.