By Chris Cosci

I do not consider myself to be one of the most intelligent people in the world. I do feel that I possess a reasonable amount of intelligence, but there are certainly plenty of other people who are smarter, quicker, and more gifted.

However, I also know that there are many people who do not have a lot of intelligence. This is just a reality of life, whether people are willing to say it out loud or not. Still, everybody deserves to be treated respectfully, and no one should be embarrassed or ashamed of people who seem slow-witted.

Unfortunately though, I have recently been exposed to a situation where certain people's obvious lack of coherence and intelligence is utterly disgraceful.

The situation started a little less than a month ago when Rommel Zamora, a 15-year-old high school sophomore, found out that R&B star Ashanti was selected by Soul Train to receive an award for Lady Soul Entertainer of the Year. Zamora was upset with this decision because he felt that Ashanti was not talented enough, and did not have the experience to be deserving of the award. After all, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. After discussing his thoughts with a couple of friends, he found out that he was not the only one who felt that way.

So, Zamora went to Petition Online, a Web site that lets people draft petitions for any cause they feel worthy. It was a simple petition, and he never expected more than 100 people to sign it. All he wanted was the chance to express his opinions and let other people voice their agreement.

Much to his surprise, over 20,000 people signed the petition, and a couple of local news shows ran reports about the signings. News of this petition reached the people at Soul Train, and they were not happy with the scenario. This is where everything went wrong.

When a company is unhappy about the actions of a group of individuals, there are reasonable and intelligent ways of addressing them, and the public. Instead, the people at Soul Train (more specifically, the show's web site, soultrain.com) issued a public response that was rude, vulgar, and totally unprofessional. They referred to Zamora as a "thoughtless idiot" and "grossly uninformed moron." They called the petition "mean-spirited" and "utterly stupid." Then, they requested that Zamora start a Web site called "I'm a f***ing loser, I'm not talented or successful, I don't know s*** about the music industry and I need to get a motherf***ing life!" I should note that the expletives were not edited on the Soul Train site.

After harsh reactions were received, the initial response was pulled from the site and replaced with a shorter, but still vastly inappropriate message. The new message expressed outrage that "people, whose ancestry suffered 400 years of slavery," were taught to sling mud at people who mean them no harm. They even go so far out of line as to say that they are "saddened to learn that, during an age when suicide terrorists have been able to level skyscrapers," so many people "have nothing better to do with the precious time they all have left on Earth."

Besides being disrespectful, thoughtless and crude, the writers of these statements also came across as uneducated by using incorrect and outright horrendous grammar. I'm not saying that good grammar would excuse their behavior - not by a long shot - but their inability to write properly only makes their actions seem more shameful. It's upsetting to think that there is anybody in their position that has that level of incompetence.

Not only should the people at soultrain.com apologize to Zamora, but they should apologize to the public for their offensive and uncalled-for actions. Otherwise, they better get used to the fact that they have lost whatever credibility they had as a respectable organization.