Poll Position: Black, White, Or Other Is Staying.

A few weeks ago, I started a new feature here that I knew would ignite some level of controversy. Black, White, Or Other is copied from The All Out Show with Lord Sear & Rude Jude on Sirius Satellite Radio's Shade 45 hip hop station. On the radio, the concept's a bit funner. They read some random crime story from the news, and listeners call in and guess the race of the defendant. It's purely mindless, ignant American fun.

My idea in stealing co-opting this feature for the blog was to challenge stereotypes by having us discuss exacting how they apply to real life situations. Namely, when you hear about a certain type of crime, do you immediately assume "yep, that's a white guy"? Have you ever watched the news and heard a story and been like "Lord, please don't let this be a Negro", only to be refreshingly surprised to find out it's a Mexican? Okay, maybe it's just me. But I'm just sayin', this is human nature, so why not dissect these misconceptions.

That was my aim at least.

Some of the initial criticism with the first couple of editions had to do with the fact that the victims and/or suspects were kids. In retrospect, that's not something I really thought about, but it is pretty crass. Still others thought treading in racial typecasting, even if to encourage critical thought, was walking a thin line. I understand this sentiment too.

That said, since I'm hardly immune to admitting when I'm wrong[1], I decided to let you guys determine the fate of B/W/O, democratically. The results were stunning. Or not.

So, AverageNation™ has spoken, and ya'll wanna keep the feature. I'm relieved because seriously, it's about the easiest feature there is to put together, and this is no small factor given the way my Day Job is working me like Kunta to death right now.

That said, I'll make some concessions. No more dead people. No more kids. The dead people part is gonna be harder than the kids part, but I'll try anyway.

In a separate poll, I asked you guys which features here at AB.com you like most. The results here were indeed surprising.

Honestly, I'm a little puzzled here. C.Y.I.N. isn't even really a proper "feature". It doesn't have it's own unique tag, and it's pretty infrequent too because I can't really make these up unless there's a news story (Powell endorses Obama) that warrants it.

I kinda figured We Owned The 80's would win in a runaway, but it finished a distant second. Personally, it's my favorite feature, but it's also the most time consuming of them all to create because of all the Youtubes and Wikis research involved in each. Nonetheless, expect lots of these in coming weeks. The curmudgeonly People I Strongly Dislike placed well, as did What Would You Do?. Black, White, Or Other finished with a respectable tally.

Oddly, the most consistent feature of all, our Sunday staple What's On AB's iPod? failed to register a single vote. Ditto for WorkPlace 101. Go figure.

Question: Should I bother doing the What's On AB's iPod feature anymore?

[1] Insert my standard marital punchline here, and win a case of Cyber CapriSuns.