Already Bradley is drawing a lot of comparisons on the Internet, and all over Twitter and Facebook, to Antoine Dodson, the Bed Intruder guy who was auto-tuned the world over, but who also happened to be a guy who was talking about the alleged rape of his sister at an Alabama housing project. Indeed, both Ramsey and Dodson are black American men who gained instant fame by way of local television interviews in which, well, neither really seemed like he'd be on television before. Those are their only similarities, but those also may, unfortunately, be the only reasons why these two men have entered the consciousness of so many white American people with a Twitter account or a couple hundred Facebook friends. That they were both connected with horror goes eerily unmentioned. "Perhaps it's time for the world's meme artists to stop assuming that any black dude getting interviewed on local news about a crime he helped to foil can be reduced to some catch phrase or in-joke" Miles Klee writes over at Blackbook. "It's just baffling that we're trying to find a way to laugh about what is, in itself, a harrowing turn of events," Klee adds.

The Internet seems to lose sight of two very important distinctions sometimes. Charles Ramsey is a hero because he called the police and helped them save three women from reportedly being raped and impregnated in a basement for a decade. But he's a meme because he's black and on TV, and because so many choose to ignore the horrible realities of the crime. And, sure, pretty entertaining for a couple minutes, but we'd like to add our support to Klee's proposal: "Just this once let’s celebrate the man himself—without using .gifs or Photoshop," he writes. Even though we know that isn't happening.

(Update, Wednesday: Turns out Ramsey has a rap sheet. Click here for more on the kidnappings.)

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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