Filed under: Blasphemous Blurbs
Since Michael Jackson’s death the outpouring of love and support, adulation and adoration, the “shock and awe” has been nearly as unremitting as the constant radio play his music has received. Those moments of shared loss have been human, healing and profoundly powerful. These have been sanguine moments of reflection seasoned with the bitter herbs of profound loss. And yet there is also been a darker, more troubling dimension to Michael’s premature departure to the community of the ancestors: People who did not know him personally, never had a cup of tea with him, sat in a room with him or spent time with him and his family, have seen fit to sit on the other side of the scale of Maat and cast judgment upon him. I should state unequivocally that I am not from the school of “judge not less ye be judged.” But rather I see judgment as an act of discernment, not as an opportunity to express narcissistic disdain. Since his death folks have weighed in and stood in judgment on his romantic choices, his skin color, his racial identity, his financial decisions, his cosmetic alterations, and his use of drugs as form of self medication and his problematic relationship with young boys. All of this before he has had his chance to walk to the light.
I can not speak for other communities but in the African American community we know better. It stems from an African American high culture—I don’t mean being bougie. It has noting to do with eduation or class standing. What I mean by high culture, is when your mother sent you next door to borrow a cup of sugar for a cake she was baking, and as soon as the cake cooled, the very first slice went to the neighbor who loaned her the cup of sugar. Reciprocity, Respect and Propriety were its pillars. We have always understood that the time to discuss the failings of a person is after they have been sent home, after our mourning has provided the necessary energy to send them on their journey. We have forgotten the best of who we are and who we can be. The evidence of this painful truth lays heavy in the air like summer humidity; as the BET Awards so aptly illustrated. I want to reiterate that I am not opposed to judgment, but I am opposed to blatant hypocrisy. Who among us could withstand the scrutiny of every bad choice we have made since we were nine (9) publicized nationally? Who among us could withstand the constant scrutiny of every “what had happened was..” moment in our lives? Some African Americans have seen fit to talk about his racial identity, all the while lining up in beauty shops around the country to have their natural African hair transformed via lye into a state that resembles the quiet quest for otherness; we create, market and consume music that deals with our women as if they are subhuman; and attack our best possibilities for hope and regeneration with a vitrolic street violence that is cannibalistic. And we would question his racial identity. I forgot African American folks denigrating and disrespecting what is best and beautiful about our blackness is the new Negro authenticity…. or was that the BET Awards…I digress.
Others have noted his change in skin color as a marker of his lack of identification with or open hostility towards blackness. But what of the reality that African Americans make up a 44% market share of the skin lighter industry? Or does it not count if you change your skin color at Walmart rather at the doctors’ office? Folks have discussed his nose, but conveniently overlooked the ways in which they cosmetically altered their bodies with tattoos, reducing their bodies–with all of its melanic force- to little more than unlined notebook paper or walking billboards. Folks have weighed in on his alleged pedophilia as they sip their merlot and listen to R. Kelly’s Chocolate Factory. But then again a Black men urinating on young black girls is not cause for outrage or reduced CD sales—because we all know the price for admission into the race for black women is their soul. When and where I enter, Paula Giddings asked, the answer: Not at iTunes. But the alleged abuse of young white boys rises to the level scandal. You serious.
As subprime mortgage crisis and the ensuing depression have swept centuries of accumulated African American wealth with tsunami force destruction, that combined with all the bad financial choices that African American make daily, we would see fit to offer a pronouncement on Michael Jackson’s largess. We who, with large folly and small savings accounts, donate to WalMart, Target, and the Clubs with violent self disregard would seek to cast judgment on a man who has given over three hundred million dollars in charitable aid over the course of his life. The tax on alcohol sales on the weekends in Clubs could fund Black education…but that drug consumption…that’s for fun…no self medicating there…Michael had a serious problem…yeah, ok. The hypocrisy is not only stunning, it’s sad.
As Africans (voluntary and involuntary immigrants) we live in a society that is not only inimical to African life and liberty, but is hostile to the very idea of our humanity. We all understand this at an intuitive level and each of us calibrates our own calculus of compromise—that is how we survive. Michael for all his wealth and privilege was not immune to these socio-ecological pressures. That his adaptations took on forms that were at times unrecognizable is a function of living under the aegis of global White Supremacy with all of its crippled cultural logic. But it would be a mistake to believe we are any different. As the poet laureate Mike Tyson once said ‘Everybody got a game plan til they get hit.”
Empathy married to humility gives birth to high intelligence. And in times like these with so much facing our people high intelligence coupled with African American high culture is what has gotten us through the many storms before and what will surely get us through this current financial storm. Right now, for a small moment the world is watching and as we—the people who taught the world to read, write, and to BE– have done so many times in the past– let us show the world once again what God looks like in her natural brown skin. And send this brother off right. Maat Kheru, Michael Jackson
Outro,
KP
[Thank you, Brother Adisa, for your wisdom & words]
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
