Inner Michael

Some things just cannot live together in the same Universe.

Things that jar the senses, make you shake your head and stagger around in disbelief because it’s a living oxymoron. This whole week was like a living breathing oxymoron– a contradiction existing in the same space. The last vigil I attended was for the Sikh Temple after a gunman killed people at their place of worship, their sanctuary of solace– the place where they go to find the divine. Now guns are back in the place where children find the mind.Violence in the one place where children are supposed to be safe surrounded by adults and nourished with ideas!

I was an oxymoron– a “paralyzed activist.” Were you stopped frozen in your tracks? Did you too, have to shake your head really, really hard to wrap your mind around it? I wanted to not just shake my head but bang it. I swallowed hard and past a lump the entire week, wanted to crawl in bed and stay there never to emerge into this world again. I resigned from the human race. Several times. I seceeded from the union. Watched for the spaceship to land.

I do not want to be in a world where the calculated and deliberate killing of children leads the news cycle. A world where children having heard the sounds of screaming and their mates dying are asked to hold hands, be led out of their school with their eyes closed so that they can’t see their peers slumped and now still in pools of blood. Or where a reporter then sticks a microphone in the face of a lone child and asks what he saw. I am a mother and a grandmother. My son is a parent now. My daughter was in Colorado working with at risk youth who were students at Columbine when the massacre occured. The same daugher lived in Aurora and attended the theatre there– the place where the “Dark Knight” was interrupted by gunfire when a delusional man began directing a horror movie playing only in his own mind.

I replayed the horror in my mind, didn’t you? Were you too, mute in the face of the nightmare now playing in a cranial cavity near you? I went weak and slipped into a stupor. I made no calls. What was I going to say? I had no wisdom for them. I didn’t have any wisdom for me. I had no magic words, no healing words. In fact, I had no words at all. This last travesty shouts without words…

“Failure!” We are a failure. This world is a failure. Our human culture is failing its children. I took it personally; didn’t you? Didn’t it batter its way into your heart? I had a hard time summoning the energy needed to even light a candle, never mind post on Facebook or attend a vigil. I was frozen, immobile. I wasn’t just broken-hearted. I was broken.

We are broken.

This is a broken world.

Tikkun is the Jewish philosophy of “repairing the world.” We have to. We have to begin Tikkun. Can you possibly bear one more tragedy like this one? Me either. I cannot fathom bearing witness to one more killing field like that– piles of dead children. And I tell you this– if it does happen again, that’s on us. From this week forward, we are all reponsible for what happens to our children. All our children.

So now begins the funerals. Tiny coffins and weeping parents barely able to stand. I need to bear witness and write about this but I can hardly stand it; and my whole body stiffens and winces limp at the prospect of finding out what I already know will be part of the awful truth… the story of yet another mariginalized and humiliated youth who marched his anger to a place he knew would communicate his rage the loudest. Inevitably yet another youth who couldn’t quite become part of the “tribe,” was somehow an implied non-member of the tribe, wasn’t welcome, or was banished metaphorically or otherwise, from the tribe. A youth who silently wailed his accumulated pain and railed against the tribe that excluded him by killing the youngest, newest and most vulnerable members.

I get it.

Yes, it is tribal. Primitive-caveman-grunting-animal-brute-and-barely-human tribal.

And the solutions being proposed… provide more training to teachers, increase security in schools, staff more security, add more checkpoints… are tribal. The NRA (National Rifle Association) president suggests more police and more guns will solve the problem? Really? He wants an armed police officer in every school. That’s not solving the problem, that is a frantic knee-jerk reaction to a problem that is much, much deeper. That’s a military state.

So what is WRONG with that picture? Well, it begins with an assumption that humans are brutes. That their behavior is that of brutes. Brutes are interested only in themselves and their own appetites. Brutes destroy things they don’t understand. Sometimes they consume (yes, eat) their young. Brutes excommunicate and sometimes kill “invaders,” “outsiders,” those who are “different,” or those from another tribe. Brutes protect their turf with force and violence. Brutes don’t think; they react. Brutes execute those who threaten them swiftly when they have weapons. When there are no weapons they do it slowly: emotionally, mentally, physically, socially, financially. Newtown was a mass execution. It was the brute force act of an “outsider.”

We have to stop making “outsiders.” We have to understand there is no “other tribe.” We have to end banishment and marginalizing. We have to find a place for “them” in our hearts and in our circles– all of them. And in our communities. And most importantly, we have to put our big boy and big girl pants on and put our children’s welfare first. We have to make our children, not our own appetites, the priority. And we have to role model that commitment. Because if we don’t our children will continue to pay a big price so the adults in their world can play “pretend” games. Pretend you can claim some kind of status that is separate, special, serves the ego, creates class, racial, social, intellectual and economic divisions. Pretend you are not the world of that child and all children. And pretend you are not responsible for it. And while you’re at this game, pretend you are somebody important, fair, mindful, mature, knowledgable, understanding, and caring. Then reach for your remote, your drink, or your gun.

Fear, cynicism and hedonism are rampant. They drone on in the background of our days like a radio we forgot turn off, no longer consciously hear but is directly impacting our unconscious. People clamor for something they value sometimes more than life that exists only in their imagination. They want status. “Status” lives only in the imagination of those who create it. And then everyone else creates it too, in in their mind and everybody believes the fantasy.

Now you have an infinity loop fraught with failure. People fear losing their elevated value (status) that exists only in fantasy (just a theory) that is self created along with the imagined creation of everyone else’s status (another fantasy.) And in order to keep the illusion going, they find ways to separate from other people and their (imagined) status in the hopes of feeling superior. Then they have to find ways to protect their (imagined) status from those of lesser (imagined) status.

People in fear of losing something, even when it is imagined believe they must protect it. Now you have survivalist mentality. And it imagines weaponry as a necessity. Or a civil right.

Artificially created separation costs.

How much longer are we willing to continue this illusion? How much longer are we willing to pay that price? Or is it time to unravel the values that hold this fabricated culture in place? Clearly, they are not working. An illusion of paranoia within illuions of separation within illusions of culture. It’s not real– it’s artificial. And it’s costing us our children.

This adult game of pretend is deadly. And it’s a defense against our own worthlessness. It’s a cover-up so that we don’t have to admit our longing for love. The Beatles had it right when they said “All You Need is Love.” Love comes in many forms: recognition; validation; being cared for; nurturance; tolerance; acceptance; equality; justice; fairness; and things like racial, ethnic and gender equality.

It’s simple really, we want to be loved.

Whose responsibility is it?
We created this world that lacks in love and we can de-create it and create something else. Individuals who feel valued, loved and who share an identity with the interconnected web and ecosystem in which they live do not feel marginalized or banished. Or shall our children continue to pay the ultimate price for adults who can’t clean up the toxic dump that has become their environment?

We are a violent people in a violent culture. Most of it’s imagination and it has got to end. The children are not responsible for it– the adults are. Our cuture does not truly support children. If it did children’s best interests would be placed ahead of all else. They would certainly be placed ahead of our adult appetites…

When did we lose sight of the children? Of their rights? When did our own appetites superceed the welfare of the children? When did we stop putting them first? When did we get so sophisticated at justifying our appetites as priority even when it harms children? When did we forget they are watching?

Perhaps it’s time to revisit selfish adult appetites:

• For the NRA and gun rights without restriction or limitation in the second amendment– adopted in the 1790s and based on obsolete British feudal law and separatist, militia thinking.
• For violent and reality TV with sexually arousing content aired in family primetime; for programs that pit people against each other and applauds and rewards conniving and bullying after first forming alliances only to manipulatively exploit them. We would not be taking pleasure in programming where those who don’t measure up are told ‘You’re fired!’ or are somehow excluded or asked to leave.
• For making “most popular,” programs where “desperate” people are competing and cloying in order to salve and pump the ego with gained imjaginary status and whose antics result more likely than not in betrayal. We would not be showing “outakes” of competition shows in order to entertain ourselves at the expense of the exploitation and humiliation of people naively reaching for their dream.
• Sanctioning a gaming industry that depicts violence so realistically that it produces the same hormones and chemical reactions in the body that precisely mimic war and trauma. We would not be desensitizing children with games so violent they get stuck in a militant fear and survival mentality loop.
• Accepting the music industry and media calling female people vile disresepctful names and reduce them to sex objects. We would not be sexualizing young females with a consumerism that is far beyond their maturity. We would shatter the glass ceiling. We would respect our elders and mine their wisdom.
• Creating places where people are held up for ridicule– on a nightly “Ridiculist” or rag magazine or a tabloid. We would not create covers of tabloids that expose people’s vulnerabilities and subject them to ridicule. We would not humiliate and dismember people for entertainment or sport on front pages of publications. We would observe ethics in journalism and dignity in media content. We would be required to back up whatever is said with proof, outlaw “checkbook journalism” and those who make up stories or lie only for exploitation or profit, would be excused from the industry. News would have to tell the truth and accusations would be dispassionately reported instead of sensationalized until proof of guilt appeared. Unexamined assumptions and opinions without merit would not be welcome in public discourse.
• Ridiculing people for their looks, their bodies, their genders, lawful preferences and choices or differences. Privacy would be respected and dignity would be sacrosanct. Men would be allowed to integrate their compassion and feminine side and still considered “manly” while women who lead, command and demand respect would not be called derogatory names.
• Slander, ridicule and mean spirited commentary masquerading as discourse. Human dignity should be respected above all else because humanness and human beings would be valued above all else and that includes children. This, being the norm of culture and society would create a human ecosystem that supports human life and especially the life of its young.
• Bullying as relationship and relational. Children should grow up in a world where they are cherished, encouraged to pursue their dreams, applauded for every effort. They should know without a doubt how valuable and valued they are because they would be charges of the whole village, not just their parents and paid instructors.

We want to be loved and that pain is so deep and so unbearable that we settle for the anesthesia of cheap “entertainment” instead.

The Children are Watching
The children are watching all this “pretending” while looking to adults to role model their adult responsibilites before they assume them. We assume and spend an “adult privilege” capital while forgetting that children and youth are watching. There is no consciousness of how adult behavior, being observed by our children, impacts them. They adopt and replicate what they learn.

We wonder why children bully and even kill each other? The “narrative” is the story of something. Humanity’s narrative is in need of a new chapter. The current narrative is not a humane one. The tribe has spoken and the children are watching. And it’s obvious that it’s not working.

They are observing a banckrupt system. We are broken and we are hypocrites. We tell children to excel, become all they can be and when they do rise to stardom in their field, the culture punishes them. The world makes it hard for them to stand against corruption when it defines success only in terms of accumulated monetary wealth, not wealth of spirit and human charity. And if they really shine or stand out as geniuses we think them odd. If they become celebrities, we lay in the weeds waiting to be tossed a morsel of human flesh or malady so we can hate or ridicule them.

Once Upon a Lone Voice, There Came a Warning
Somebody once tried to tell us all this. But we were too busy trying to find ways to make him “different,” “weird” or “wacko.” What I have learned through this research project is that there was someone who was trying to challenge our narrative. He got it right but the world didn’t like the message nor the package he came in. The world decided he was too “different” to be credible. Too “childlike” to be sophisticated, to strange to be normal.

He tried to say that putting children above all else was normal and essential. That relinquishing your own comfort to give them privileged postion fed their self esteem and confidence. He said that love and loving children was the most important thing adults could do.

He said we should sacrifice everything for our children and treat them like royalty because he saw God in them. Children, he said, were treasures. They hold the solutions to the problems of the world. In childhood humans are yet untainted by corruption and manipulation, avarice and envy. He said the children of the world are entitled to live in a safe and nurturing world free of pain and hunger. He practiced Tikkun and asked everybody to practice it.

He got it right.

If You Can’t yet Kill the Messenger, Kill the Message
But in Michael Jackson’s world, they didn’t hear or understand what he was saying and the message came packaged in an unusual messenger, they thought him odd, a mutant, a freak. What was this adult guy doing with those children, anyway? What was he thinking building a shrine-like playgorund for children on his estate and inviting children from all walks of life to visit, especially those disenfranchised by the culture? Those banished from the tribe?

He must be up to something, right? He can’t be so innocent or naive as he pretends, right? I mean, just look at the guy… he’s too Black, too talented, too influential, too sophisticated, too sexy, too confident, too “feminine” and too in-your-face challenging with his music and art… Because he’s so “odd” and “different” he must be well… twisted, right?

I mean, there is something wrong with a guy who preaches love, asks us to save the world and save the children and prefers the company of kids to cynical adults playing the pretend game, is saving himself sexually for the woman he is serious about and wants to marry because his religion dictates it. He must be a homosexual, then. And if he’s homosexual it’s not a big leap to assume he has those appetites with children, right? And look how he keeps trying to lighten his skin and betray his race then blames it on a real disease, Vitiligo but you can’t believe him because you’d rather make him a self-loathing  Black man until he dies, that is, and the coroner says he indeed had Vitiligo. Who in their right mind would think him innocent when he has all that fame and all that money…

So he must be doing something wrong or illegal, right? Wrong. Michael Jackson got it right.

We lend to the world who we are being inside. Our actions in the world are an outplaying of the character that lives inside us and what we bathe our brains and tissues with based on the ecosystem of our minds. Some bring a slush fund; others bring dignity. And some bring extraordinary gifts. What’s on the mind, what lives in our mentality is who we are. When you purchase a new red volkwagen suddenly the road is full of them. You find in the world an echo of who you are being because you resonate with it.

See the world as a dangerous place, and oh-my-goodness- the world is scary. Have boogeymen on the brain and they’re all around you. Look for them and they show up everywhere. See a superstar you consider “odd” with children and he must be doing something criminal, right? It’s just not normal for a grown man to lavish attention on children, right? Especially when they aren’t his own, right? And if you’re a pretending adult who is mentally ill too and he’s attending to your child and you’re loosing status in your child’s life and you don’t like it, you can call him on it. And to soothe your hurt and you stand to make huge money, accuse him of doing something inappropriate and collect your payday.

Then find reporters and tabloids who are willing to also become parasitic and expose, exploit and feast on this manufactured scandal. And have them milk it and wring out every last drop of sensation from it until you have shredded his dignity, his career and his psyche.

Then do it again ten years later and leave him a broken shell of a man despite his proven innocence. And when it doesn’t go the way you think it should in your mental ecosystem, and it costs you money in the scandalous aftermath you envision when he is imprisoned, call “foul!”

And when your treachery is close to being revealed and you are about to be exposed as a life-sucking parasite, insist you were right despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Bully and beat up on a dead man. And then call “foul” again and let your fear of discovery drive your desperation to hide the truth.

The children are watching.

Some day we will not still be vilifying a man who got it right by stepping into the real world of Michael Jackson, not the caricature. The world that didn’t play “pretend” games but played real games and showered attention on children because he could. And because he felt children were the most precious things this planet had to offer.

Step into that world and the shoes of Michael Jackson just for a moment:

In Michael Jackson’s world it is believed that children should be our priority. They should be treated like treasures and adults should defer to them for the sake of their safety and comfort in the world. Adults should even reliquish their beds and sleep on the floor if children hanging out conk out on the bed watching movies. You believe the world should love and support its children no matter what. Because you see God in them and believe everyone else should see it too.

And when children look up to you, emulate you, love you and idolize you because you’re their superstar and their hero, you do everything in your power to empower those, and all, children. When children write you letters and tell you that your music keeps them going in worst and most tragic of circumstances, you love and support them even if you have to thumb your nose at the world; especially a world that has misunderstood and treated you so badly. You believe that the fragile psyche of just one needy child is more important than the world’s opinion of you. So foolishly perhaps, you dismiss the world in favor of the child…

Michael Jakcson got it right. Those theories about children took him to Oxford University for a speaking engagement there and are outlined in a book by Rabbi Schmuley: “Honoring the Child” which is about Michael Jackson’s philosophy about children.

The audience for the Oxford speech was the largest ever, even bigger than the Dalai Lama’s audience. And the media when reporting the event ridiculed Jackson and interjected their opinions and past charges to once again, marginalize the man and nullify the message.

The media ridiculed him for his parenting of his own children and became obsessed with their race and whether they were his biological children. Since the practice of adoption including children from other races was widespread and a culturally suitable practice, one has to wonder what all the noise was about? They mocked his insistence that his children wear masks (that we have since found out was to protect and keep them safe) and allowed them to move about in the world unrecognized when not accompanied by their father. He spoke of love and how lavishing love upon our children results in making them, and therefore the world, a better place.

And it’s a philosophy he lived.

Michael Jackson was a hero to many but especially to children. In each city he performed he visited hospitals and orphanages with armfuls of gifts and toys. He built playgrounds and classrooms and hospital wings. But it was more entertaining to defame him and call him names and make him “weird” or a “freak” in tabloids and tabloid-esque media. It was a feeding frenzy; he was a cash cow for the media and a lot of people lots of money using him. It was violent, but it was very profitable.

Except for the children.

It was 23 years ago that Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton was invaded by an adult gunman, himself marginalized, banished and failed by the system in youth, wielding an AK-47 rifle. He killed 5 children and wounded 30 people. Ten years later we saw 2 Columbine shooters do the same thing in Colorado; they also attempted but failed to blow up their school. The Coumbine shooters complained of bad treatment and marginalization by the “jocks” as school. They too were “outsiders.”

After the Cleveland School shooting in Stockton, California, Michael Jackson made a phone call and a visit…

Here’s the story about the Cleveland School Shooting and Jackson’s visit:

By Roger Phillips, Record Staff Writer

January 18, 2009 12:00 AM:

Weeks after he was wounded in the Cleveland Elementary School shootings, 6-year-old Rob Young and his family received a call from a caseworker with the San Joaquin County district attorney’s victim/witness assistance office that a celebrity was coming to Stockton to visit children and families.

“They didn’t tell us who it was,” Young said. “We thought it was going to be the president.”

In fact, it was pop singer Michael Jackson, just back from a world tour and at the height of his celebrity. Jackson had heard about the tragedy and, on Feb. 7, 1989, he came to town to try to boost spirits.

Deputy Police Chief Lucian Neely went to meet Jackson as his limousine arrived in Stockton. Neely decided to have Jackson ride in his car. That way, when the limousine arrived at Cleveland, the expected mob would be distracted and Neely could bring the King of Pop into the school in relative peace.

When Jackson got in the car, he told Neely there was one thing he needed to do before going to Cleveland.

“I have to use the restroom first,” he said.

So Neely brought Jackson by a firehouse on March Lane.

“Hey, Michael Jackson would like to come in and use your restroom,” Neely asked the firemen. “Can he do that?”

Wearing a dark blue military-style uniform, Jackson visited every classroom at Cleveland that day, stopped by Central Methodist Church to meet wounded children not yet ready to return to school and sat with two more children still recovering at San Joaquin General Hospital. Jackson gave all the children videotapes and T-shirts.

“His presence made me feel like, ‘Oh, wow, the world is safe, and it is possible to dream, and there is hope after all,’ ” said Elizabeth Pha, 27, who as an adult is pursuing her own career as a singing star.

In a recent interview with former Record reporter Dianne Barth, Cleveland Principal Pat Busher said, “(Jackson’s) motivations were heartfelt. … It was to help children. And that event did a lot of good for the children.”

 

The video is in Italian; the translation echos the article:
“Michael Jackson always the great humanitarian visits the Cleveland Elementary School , Stockton.
It was February in the elementary school of Cleveland an unbalanced assailant opened fire in the camp of games (playground.) In a few minutes 5 children were killed and a teacher and 29 children were wounded.

In the days after the shooting of the boys and they were afraid to send children to school. And even if the killings at the Cleveland school had made national news, Stockton saw no help from anyone who could provide relief.

Until Michael Jackson came to Stockton a few weeks after the killings. Diane Batres, who was not associated with MJJ Productions received a phone call from the Victim Witness Program.

After learning that Michael Jackson was interested in visiting the children in school who survived, Batres and Jackson eventually agreed to a day when Michael could visit the school. Michael stopped and visited each classroom and the church to meet the injured children are not ready to go back to school and was very kind to do this. He came with arms full of gifts. He was genuinely interested in expressing his pain/grief.

Michael distributed his recordings to the children and staff one of the tracks distributed was Man in the Mirror. This is the Michael Jackson we all know and love. Like Martin Luther King, Michael Jackson also had a dream.”

Here is an article from one of those children:

http://voices.yahoo.com/michael-jackson-showed-support-1989-town-3687452.html?cat=2

This another “Cleveland” School that appreciates Michael Jackson with a tribute:
(Not the same elementary school Jackson visited but  Cleveland School of the Arts)

I thought we could all use a chuckle and a bit of happiness to ease the pain…

Here are some links in case you need them:

Oxford Speech on Youtube Part I

I plan to request and to host a letter writing campaign at my church for letters to the NRA and to elected representatives.
Here are some cogent articles about the events in Connecticut and links for you in case you are interested and need them:

Rampage Shootings:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/17/opinion/newman-school-shooters/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Why America Lets the Killings Continue:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/17/opinion/newman-school-shooters/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

How America’s Toxic Culture Breeds Mass Murder:
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/how_americas_toxic_culture_breeds_mass_murder/

Shooters are Mosty White and From Suburbia:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/20926/mass-shooters-like-adam-lanza-are-a-mostly-white-male-suburban-phenomenon

NRA – National Rifle Association
https://nraila.org/secure/contact-us.aspx

To contact elected officials:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/20926/mass-shooters-like-adam-lanza-are-a-mostly-white-male-suburban-phenomenon

Time to move past the paralysis and roll up our sleeves to go to work creating the world we want. Begin where you are.