Michael Jackson and the Nation in the Mirror

Michael Jackson was just a few weeks shy of his ninth birthday on August 13, 1967, when he and his brothers won the amateur-night competition at Harlem's famous Apollo Theatre. Two years later, with the release of 'I Want You Back', 'ABC', 'I'll Be There', and 'The Love You Save', the Jackson 5 became the first recording artists in American history to actually have their first four singles released on a major recording label immediately reach the top of the music charts. Many years of hard work and perseverance had finally paid off. Their very popular afro hairstyles during that particular time have left a rather poignant iconographic witness to the vast self-determined mood of the Black community; during the very pre- dawn hours of the Second Reconstruction. The great political turmoil of the 1960s eventually created an environment where the entire nature of what it meant to be an American had suddenly been thrown open to question. Thus, the Jacksons 5 came into super-stardom at an age similar to our own day, just as the nation was once again on the verge of re-making its brand. This was their time.

However, at such a tender age Michael like Barack Obama was actually a bit too young to become truly active as a participant in any of the great social and political movements of that time; many of which were still in various stages of development all around him. By this time nonetheless, the prerogatives of the Civil Rights Movement had completely given sway to the enormously popular surge of PoliticalGarveyism which had suddenly been brought back to life by the Black Panther Party. "Say it loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud" and "Black Power!" were the catch phrases of the day. At the same time, frustrated by a seemingly endless and unjust war in Vietnam, the Progressive Movement nationwide had begun to take a decisively radical turn. Still, it remains a fact that before the regime change on April 4 ¹ of that following year, the political trade-winds for African Americans were wholly in favor of Human Rights and Black Self-determination. Although he could sing with the best of them, like Obama, Michael Jackson was simply an adolescent and had not yet come of age.

Nevertheless, both men had been born during what would prove to be a rather significant historical crossroad, and consequently they would both traverse upon a life-path that was actually on the bridge between two generations of African Americans which have at times appeared to be completely at odds with one another. It remains indeed quite true that amid the intermittent play of what is sometimes rather bizarre inter-generational turmoil these two generations exist today, as if two independent legs of what appears to be the losing side of a historic relay race. This is because for the very first time it seems as if someone has truly dropped the baton. --- Opps!How in the Hell could any leadership allow that to happen? ------ You might ask. Never before in its epic history from slavery towards freedom, has the African American community faced such a momentous generation gap.

However, let us be real because if the truth be told both of these generations have left their very own particular scourge of indecency upon our age and there is indeed quite enough blame to go around. On the one hand, during the 2008 Campaign, when they had finally been called upon to stand up for the most poignant real-life example of the kind of dream that they had been peddling to the African American community for more than four decades, both Jessie Jackson and Andrew Young had no problem at all simply leaving us with the indecent narcissistic legacy of their rather un-toward remarks.² On the other hand, it is now patently clear that we shall soon be faced with the pathological ruins of an entire generation of what for all intents and purposes is a large class of lost boys. Anytime a young man allows himself to be so thoroughly caught up in a fashion trend that would convince him to wear his pants below his underwear, he is casting out two very powerful symbols. First, he is showing the world that he is unfit and unprepared to protect his community; simply because one of his hands is constantly occupied with trying to hold his pants up. And second, he is making it undeniably clear that he is without any doubt whatsoever prepared for homosexual sex. Make no mistake about it. Both Michael Jackson and Barack Obama were born on the bridge between these two generations. Each of them would ultimately come to owe a large measure of their success to their ability to negotiate the often incongruous discourse of this vast inter-generational divide.

As an artist who would eventually play an active role however large or small, in shaping the contours of these two very powerful and dynamic eras of American cultural production, Michael Jackson would ultimately emerge in the midst of it all as the most popular entertainer in the entire world. Perhaps unlike no other notable figure in American history, he almost single-handedly successfully guided the nation's culture in a way that helped to bridge the gap between an old era and a new age, from the world as it was, towards the world as it could be, and from the media of yesterday towards the media of tomorrow. Along the way, with an almost unparalleled creative genius, he helped to set in motion the emerging trends that would ultimately help to get us there. Michael's talent crossed the boundaries of age, race, and culture.

As primitive as it may sound today, without Michael Jackson's massive influence, MTV may never have been persuaded during the early 1980s to completely abandon their segregationists' business model. If MTV had simply remained segregated and continued playing only White artists, an entire industry may not have been afforded its great leap forward into a totally new and remarkably innovative age. The video Billie Jean broke that barrier and Jackson was eventually credited with single-handedly saving the American music industry at a time when slumping sales and a lack of creative innovation were crying out for a new direction. Michael helped to guide the pop culture with his enormous talent. Very few artists at that time or since have had such a powerful cross-cultural appeal.

During a time when the American media often appeared to be simply bent upon some kind of perverse overt campaign to completely destroy the image of Black men, Michael Jackson's integration of MTV, initiated a process that has actually just recently come into full maturation; during the Presidential Campaign of 2008 with the ultimate "digitized-celluloid human-ization" of Black people across a wide commercial span of American television media.³ This is simply to say that we do now seem to be experiencing a somewhat more balanced approach towards the presentation of Black commercial images ever since last year's election. Of course, as we have come to expect during this period as the nation often appears to be regurgitating many of the most vile aspects of its sordid past, there is to be expected that odd racist backlash from companies like Old Navy with their recent racist ad⁴, or the second Transformer movie with its off-beat stereotypical depiction of two characters evidently meant to be representative of 'the Hood'⁵, and then there was of course the bizarre racist outburst by New York Congressman Peter King directed at Michael himself ⁶.

Unfortunately though, this long-overdue process of celluloid humanization actually ran into a rather bizarre roadblock back in the 1980s, as Black billionaire Bob Johnson chose to make his fortune by peddling soft porn on BET. While MTV had initially refused to play any videos featuring women of color, Bob Johnson created an entirely brand new industry of 'Video Hoes' by providing a lucrative venue for the un-checked re-invention of the negative racist caricature of the super-sexualized Black Jezebel and her loud obnoxious sister Sapphire; complete with thongs and a whole lot of "Hey, I Got Mine" and "Talk To The Hand" - attitude. Johnson created an industry that helped to truly denigrate the image of African American women around the world. Throughout its lifespan, it has often appeared as if BET has only served to destroy a once promising genre of Black music by promoting soft-porn videos and silly Gansta attitudes most of which has really seemed to have set the music back instead of propelling it forward; witness Jammie Foxx's recent X-Rated pants-hanging-off-the-ass-Jezebel-get-your-attitude-on tribute to Michael Jackson. Sadly enough, we have reached a time when the active ingredients of cultural suicide no longer seem to require a White provocateur. Nonetheless, Johnson would be touted by the corporate media as one of the foremost leaders of the New Talented Tenth --- Go figure!

At the same time, the course of Michael's life and career provided a near-perfect mirror image of the gradually distorted nature of racial discourse in America. Today, instead of honest dialogue, true issues of racial injustice are strenuously avoided. In Michael, we have the most fitting metaphor for the 'tricknology' which we have variously been witnessed to over the span of the last few decades. Today, racism is like some deformed child that we have all kept hidden in the basement. We all know that it is there, but we really not supposed to talk about it. Moreover, any effort to seriously engage the public square in an honest discussion about race, racism, and America's painful legacy of Apart-Hate violence and injustice is simply reduced to either 'Playing the Race Card', or 'Playing the Victim'. The subject of race is to be avoided at all costs.

In view of this, what for all intents and purposes should have rightly emerged after the 1960s as a momentous new era of self-determined freedom and internationally observed recognition for the natural human rights of African Americans, after a truly bizarre and rather vicious century of Jim Crow-Apart-Hate violence and discrimination, was immediately co-opted once more by yet another generation of Talented Tenth. Now that the Black Nationalist s were fully under siege, the 'New Talented Tenth' quickly took the opportunity to once again force their rather warped and heretofore widely rejected cultural worldview back into the 'perceptual' forefront of the political discourse. After the regime change of 1968, an entire generation was all of a sudden saturated with a neatly contrived Disneyland version of the Black Freedom Struggle of the previous decade. Suddenly, they had created the image that somehow civil rights-integration had been the exclusive cultural and political worldview of the entire movement. However, nothing could have been further from the truth. Even Malcolm and Martin had agreed that without Malcolm's strident advocacy for Self-Determination and Human Rights, the Civil Rights Movement would not have gained the moderate success that it did. ⁷ However, instead of a great leap forward towards building the independent self-contained Black communities that were once the mainstay of Black life from the early 1800s until well into the 1970s, the New Talented Tenth popularized the demonization of all Black ghettos as slums and centers of urban blight, rampant crime, and social disorganization. Although the word 'ghetto' simply denotes a solidly ethnic community, today cast in blackface it has been given a totally new and completely negative connotation. Nonetheless, freedom to the Talented Tenth has always meant just a handful of carefully selected and perfectly groomed elite Blacks gaining "a seat at the table of brotherhood" in order no doubt, to spend their lives "dogging the spit of their fellows".⁸ This is what talented tenth actually means. The rest of the Black community (90 percent) as Dubois had said, were considered worthless.

Thus, when the smoke finally cleared in the 1970s, the Ne w Talented Tenth who had 'assumed' leadership in the wake of Dr. King's assassination, all the while the Panthers were being massacred in the streets, proved to have absolutely no program whatsoever for African American Self-Determination. By the 1980s the lynching of Black men, and even women and children by police officers in the United States had reached epic proportions. Yet, with the exception of courageous victims of such atrocities like Ramona Africa --- ('On a Move!') --- no one seemed to be willing to raise an international megaphone to bring these atrocities to light. The new model of Civil Rights leadership simply became little more than a cabal of glorified ambulance chasers. King's non-violent movement eventually had its last stand in South Africa; ultimately bringing Apartheid to its knees. Meanwhile, the Black community within the United States was left to falter and stumble on its own way towards a vague sense of freedom. It is this warped cultural worldview which has continues to push the notion that individual freedom can somehow be equated with the acquisition of the mores of a community that once enslaved and invariably continues to brutalize your own people. It is this fundamentally warped schizophrenic philosophy of the Talented Tenth which has ultimately come to arrest the true potential of the African American community. In the meantime, with grace and class Michael Jackson was quietly opening doors for Black people all over the world.

However, in spite of perhaps the most reclusive ivory tower in the entire world, Michael Jackson would come to witness all of this first hand. Even after bringing Sony records back from the brink of virtual bankruptcy in the 1980's, in the 1990s he would march on their offices and vociferously accuse them of the vilest form of racism. Even a man who had gained so much acclaim in life, only to eventually become the most well known human being on the planet, would still ultimately find himself forced to summit to crude court-subpoenaed nude photographs taken of his genitals; just like a common slave. Indeed, his very public metamorphosis, from a handsome young Black man with a proud natural hairstyle to the characteristic whitening of his skin and the total distortion of his facial features, are all fitting metaphors for the brutal attack upon Black Self-determination which began in full force under Cointelpro during the late 1960's, was dutifully codified in the regime change of 1968, and has evolved into the complete distortion of any honest discourse on race until this very day. African Americans continue to be lynched in this country. Nevertheless, nobody dares to call it lynching anymore. Michael always gave us hope.

While Michael Jackson eventually ran for cover towards his Blackness, President Obama seems determined to run steadfastly away from it. Maybe he feels that any personal exhortations against even the most egregious racist injustice would only serve to paint him as yet another terribly feared Black Messiah. However, his continued silence may in time come back to haunt him; by turning him into yet another Jack Johnson. The famously garish Heavyweight Champion was also a man who appeared to remain rather indifferent to the surge of racist bloodlust that was left in the wake of his own career. Like Princess Diana, Michael's spirit has truly brought the world together.

In life, Michael was known to break a number of records with both his music and his heart. His album Thriller sold more than 109 million copies worldwide, and he is also listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for his charitable giving. Last week, Michael Jackson's death caused the single-largest surge on the internet since the attack of September 11, 2001. One week after his death Michael's music again captured the top nine positions on Billboard's Pop Catalog. The website of the Staples Center where his memorial was held reportedly crashed within minutes of the lottery being announced for the affair. Approximately 2.6 million people applied to be one of the 8,750 individuals who eventually received two tickets to his memorial. Outside, nearly one million people reportedly lined the streets in front of the auditorium. Another, 6,500 watched on a screen set up in the Nokia Theater nearby. Nearly everywhere on the planet where Michael Jackson was known, from Times Square to Tokyo Japan, not to mention online, watched the memorial for the man known as the King of Pop Music. CNN online reported its largest traffic ever.

Only in death does it appear that the world has begun to truly grasp his enormous impact upon humanity. Barry Gordy proclaimed that Michael Jackson was the greatest entertainer in history. As his tremendous spirit continues to reverberate throughout ever corner of the planet, it is hard to argue otherwise.

Author/Publisher T. S. Aschenge is affectionately known as a Renaissance Man. This is because he happens to also be an accomplished painter, and a talented chef. Today, he is a fulltime writer who telecommutes all over the world. His many essays, articles, and featured stories have become a cherished staple of numerous websites and publications. His Blog is called If Neal Street Could Talk! Visit his Blog at: http://www.ifnealstreetcouldtalk.wordpress.com Visit his Website at: http://www.okwriteit.wordpress.com Email him at: okwriteit@yahoo.com Follow him on: Twitter at: www.twitter.com/taschenge On identi.ca.com: http://identi.ca/taschenge/all On spnbabble: http://spnbabble.sitepronews.com/taschengeOn Facebook: facebook.com/tsaschengeOn linkedin.com: http://www.linkedin.com/in/icanwritethat4uMy Space: http://www.myspace.com/icanwritethat4u
Notes

¹ It is my belief that Dr. King's assassination precipitated an intentional 'regime change' whose aim was to completely re-direct the course of Black Liberation in the United States. The leadership that was promoted into the 'commercially-accepted-perpetual' leadership of the African American communityat that time simply made their careers by 'pimping' their previous relative proximity to Dr. King's enormous personality.

² See 'Bill Dated More Black Women Than Obama' (Dec. 10, 2007) at: http://sweetness-light.com/archive/bill-had-more-black-women-than-obama. Young's tasteless rationale for his support for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the Democratic Primary sparked outrage. One commentator said that it was as if Young believed that 'Black consciousness could be spread like a venereal disease'. However, his comments would actually be bested in their utter disgust by Jesse Jackson who early in July of 2008 pretended to be unaware of a 'hot mike' on the set of Fox News and actually publically called for Obama's castration. See 'Hot Mic Catches Jesse Jackson Hammering Obama'http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/hot-mike-catche.html

³ It has really been only since last year in the midst of Campaign 2008 that we have seen American television take this great leap forward in the humanized portrayal of Black people. No longer does it seem to be required that the "expert" presented on any particular subject be "White".

⁴ See: http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2009/03/is-the-new-old-navy-ad-racist-001707.php

⁵ See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090625/ap_en_mo/us_film_transformers_jar_jar_again

⁶ See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/06/pete-king-michael-jackson_n_226062.html

⁷ Martin and Malcolm had famously become friends who would talk on the phone at length to one another. One thing that they publically agreed upon was the fact that it was Malcolm's brand of militancy that helped to force many of the moderated successes of the Civil Rights Movement.

⁸ In WEB Dubois' classic book The Souls of Blackfolk, Dubois writes: "He (the Negro) simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face. ------ This, then, is the end of his striving ......"