The folks at Soul Train are assholes.

Actually, there’s more to it than that. A fifteen-year-old California high school student took issue with their choice for their annual lady-of-soul award, viewing Ashanti as a less worthy candidate than his favorite contender, India.Arie. So, like any teen with time on his hands, he started a petition at PetitionOnline.com and circulated it to his friends, figuring at most he’d get 100 or so signatures.

Well, it got more interesting than that. He got more than ten thousand. Soul Train was unaccountably threatened by this act, and their webmaster sent the kid an abusive email for daring to question their judgement. Furthermore, they posted said mail on their site (you’ll have to go to the kid’s site to see screenshots of it), though eventually they removed it in favor of the two diatribes currently on their front page — which include references to “white-owned BET,” apparently their windmill du jour, as well as commentary about how anyone has time to organize petitions in a post-9/11 world (presumably, though, finding time to honor artists in the first place is Just Fine for any Red-Blooded, Soul-Train-Loyal American). Additionally, they cast aspersions on this kid based on his “foreign-sounding” name, and seem to view his opinions as meritless since he’s not black. What the Fuck?

Wow. Way to go, Soul Train! For these actions — i.e., having a very silly and very public fit because a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD disagreed with you — we present you with the first annual NoGators Award for Shockingly Stupid Corporate Behavior! Don Cornelius, come (get?) on down!