Why are the rules different when you’re a Jackson? They were different for Michael; they were different for Janet; they are different for Katherine; they are different for the Jackson brothers.
Why is that?
When you’re a Jackson and a piece of American history, American music royalty, an evolutionary and revolutionary for race relations, the first musicians to address social justice issues, the first child protégé and product of pride for African Americans– why are the ruled different for you?
If you’re a female celebrity why are the rules different for you than they are for males of your same genre?
And if you are female and black, and dare to be openly sexy or sexual, why is that the end of the world? Why does that so offend people?
Are you offended by female nudity?
Are you offended by breasts?
This is a photo of Lady Liberty by French painter Eugene De Lacroix
Offended?
This was a little racy wasn’t it? Offended here?
Remember this? Offended?
Then why all this?
Just sayin’…
From the Huffington Post:
All Donations currently are being used to publish the “Words and Violence” Compendium, a project with more than 600 pages of resources about bullying with words– from the playground to the media. The Compendia will be shared with schools, childrens’ programs, educators and other supporters.
“Words and Violence” studies the impact of words when used as weapons to promote violence.
The work is dedicated to Michael Jackson and Lady Diana Spencer.
5 Comments
Rev Barbara, I ask this same question all the time. I see the Jacksons on the news all the time, but most of the time it is mostly negative, but why is that? All of the Jacksons are so talented and a great family. We can find a little glimpse of the answer when Michael was interviewed with Geraldo Rivera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5wBcd6slow.
Now, there is the news of Michael having a love child, B. Howard. I don’t know what to think about this, since no one heard of him. I believe the truth will be revealed.
Yes, all news Jackson is mostly negative. It’s the same syndrome that plagued Michael that has plagued his family. When something is repeated enough, people begin to believe it and it rolls off the tongue as if a truth. No one bothers to check the veracity of the material. The Jackson’s have been vilified ever since they lifted themselves out of the poverty in a Midwest neighborhood whose only economic scaffold was the steel industry. A black family dared to become the most popular musical group in America when blacks were kept in their place by bigotry, prejudice, segregation and gentrification. The response by those insulted and incensed was to work to nullify the Jackson family over time.
Even fans have unwittingly gotten caught up in the “stone the Jackson’s” self-righteous egocentric game of condemnation. They don’t remember the incessant attempts at nullification of the most famous music royalty of the twentieth century. Famous black music royalty. They perpetuate the nullification game and its ghetto and bigoted mentality. They hop on the same vehicle that harmed Michael– and allow the Jacksons to be cast as less-than-human and undeserving of their reputation and history. They’re only good for a joke, right? Just like Michael, huh?
People who may not have been around during the civil rights movement may not realize that saying things like someone is “too lazy to work.” or “only wants a handout” are racist statements. They derive from the lazy black and absent male legend of racial prejudice. One of Michael’s cherished friends once told me “Michael loved his family deeply; he just didn’t want to do business with them.”
It appears the Howard thing may be a hoax initiated by profit driven celebrity news. (You know who you are.) Michael Jackson was sued several times per year by women who claimed to have had his baby, if that tells you anything. Lots of people used Michael Jackson as their personal banker or tried to. He can’t even escape it in death. It’s an ugly trait of human nature to envy and then grab what you haven’t earned and aren’t entitled to. We could also be racist by pointing out that most of those were white.
Even in the clip, Geraldo refers to a “cultural” norm. in previous years– decades and centuries, children piling into adult beds was normal. No one even thought of “sexual” as a possibility because it occurred to no one. After the sensationalization, exploitation and hysteria of the Mac Martin Preschool case, which had not an ounce of truth or legitimacy and took ten years to exonerate those who were never guilty, children piling on beds became a taboo. Prior to that time of mass hysteria and group think helped along by the media, children sharing the same beds as adults didn’t get a second look. Now adult males cannot be in the same room with a child without the escort of another adult.
When Michael responded that he would never again place himself in such a vulnerable position as before, he was referring to allowing a needy family with a sick child to ever again get so close to him. Geraldo’s interpretation was “no more sleepovers.” There is a difference. See what happens when assumptions are made? Michael Jackson helped many needy and sick children by visiting them in hospitals, bringing gifts, paying for hospital wings and equipment, paying for transplants and surgeries, and even funerals that families couldn’t afford. The world will never know most of these stories for Michael was modest and kept it to himself.
The guilty parties however, will have their day– not in court but after they join Michael in death and during their life review when they are asked to account for what they did. Many have much to atone for. It’s not that other people haven’t suffered similarly but that they were not metaphorically lynched by a mob in the throes of hysteria and then dismembered in front of the whole world while being made fodder for jokes considered inhumane by any minimal standard of decency. Its a quintessential example of cultural projection of shadow and archetype in our lifetime.
Yes, it is true that there has been many paternity claims against Michael, but I believe this one is different. I can be wrong, but I’ve done some research and I have a slight belief that he’s Michael’s son. He never publicly claimed to be his son, but he always speaks positive of the Jackson family and how they took good care of him and raised him since he was a young boy. I always had great respect for the Jackson family, but now I have more respect for them. They always try to protect people they love which is something Michael did as well. He did it with Prince, Paris and Blanket and no one knew what they looked like until he passed away.
Barbara, did you actually mean to say that nobody got offended by Miley’s performance? You can’t be serious, people were trashing her for months for doing something that pop stars were always doing. Miley got outrage because she is an ex Disney girl, and people were “shocked” to see her grow up. It was actually similar to what Michael was talking about – child-stars are given a hard time when they want to break out of their kiddie image and do different things. Michael wanted to show them he wasn’t a child anymore when he performed sexual dance moves in Bad, and Miley did the same thing with that performance. People freaked, of course.
People love to get offended and outraged, especially in America, so I don’t think it has been invented for Jacksons specifically.
I agree that the reaction to Janet’s “costume malfunction” has been ridiculous in the US, here in Europe no one could see why it was a big deal at all. But a lot of artists had to face an idiotic public outrage, not just Jacksons.
Hi G, the Miley inclusion was satire on my part. However, some people were not offended. My take is that it’s not a great transition from Hannah Montana to Miley and adulthood to portray oneself as a sex object. Women are objectified in the culture enough without heaping on more. Objectification contributes to unequal pay, power differentials for women, rape culture, bullying, and girls and women who don’t measure up to certain body standards feeling marginalized and even choosing suicide. As a feminist who fought so hard for so many years for women’s rights and equality, you can imagine how I felt about that performance.
As a career move, however, it was genius. Create controversy and the next day Good Morning America and Saturday Night Live calls for an interview and your record catapults to number one on the charts. It’s effective. In fact, Michael used it. And some say Janet’s “wardrobe malfunction” was deliberate.
My point it that yes, it was and is, disproportionate for Jacksons. Janet’s performance created an uproar. The FCC fined the broadcasters half a million dollars and immediately issued a crackdown on indecency. It was debated as degrading the national morality. Janet was blacklisted and her career almost derailed while Justin Timberlake took none of backlash nor did he rise to stand with her. Everybody left her twisting in the wind; it was a public lynching with words and media. It took a long time for Janet to recover and to resurrect her career. Miley and Beyoncé suffered no such treatment and Beyoncé is also a black woman.