About 20% of my Facebook friends are African-American. After Michael Jackson's death, almost all of them posted some message of sadness about the crossover artist's untimely death. Only one of my white friends did the same. I suspect a few, like me, had mixed feelings about Jackson and were just tired of hearing about him. I'm sure others view him negatively, and strongly so, but are temporarily choosing to be respectful of the dead. In any case, this represents a remarkably strong divide among people who have much in common besides race. Michael Jackson functions as a racial Rorschach test. (Caution: generalizations ahead.)
I'd contend that middle-class Midwestern whites (consciously or sub-consciously) mistrust riches & fame. Temptations become too easy to give into and even good burghers will be led astray. Deep down inside, I think we suspect that a child raised rich & famous has little chance of developing good character, a moral center or whatever else you want to call the prerequisites to becoming a good burgher. The life of Michael Jackson, as reported to us, did nothing to disabuse us of this notion.
African-Americans (again consciously or subconsciously) seem to suspect that whenever one of their own achieves success, all & sundry will target him. Nothing in the tabloid portrayal of Michael Jackson disabused them of this notion, either.
Once I noticed this and mentioned the apparent racial divide to a friend, I decided I should at least read Jackson's Wikipedia page. While Wikipedia should never constitute the last word on a subject, pages for controversial figures tend to be relatively fair IMO, often concisely separating fact from myth. I'd suggest that anyone research at least that much before saying anything more that's detrimental to his memory.
Few people, I think, would hold up much of Jackson's private life as something to emulate, but I'm worried now that unfair bad publicity harmed him as much as anyone I can think of. Unless new evidence comes out, it's probable that history will be much kinder to him than we were while he was alive.
Thank you for your honest and courageous blog post.
Posted by: Tiffany | Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 07:05
He so obviously needed help and all he got was the paparazzi.
Posted by: Jolene | Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 11:02
i like how this guy rags on Hyde Park Progress for using the workd "ghetto" and then pulls out this article.
Posted by: asdf | Wednesday, 01 July 2009 at 16:07
For what it's worth, I saw the distribution of MJ-related Facebook messages to be more age-based than anything else. Those who remembered what Thriller meant as a pop cultural phenomenon posted their reactions.
Posted by: evandebacle | Wednesday, 01 July 2009 at 20:37
My inner 12-year-old is still in deep mourning.
Posted by: Jolene | Saturday, 04 July 2009 at 12:49