CAUTION: This is a very, very disturbing picture.
Well, at least to me, it is.
Brace yourself...
So, my contention of him being a half-Asian, half-white man is true.
This is supposed to be a rare picture from a photoshoot for his Invincible album. The 'blue eye' picture, as the New York Daily News described it, and it is now up for auction.
I wonder if Michael wanted real blue eyes? Shit, seeing that he has designer kids, he probably did...
Huh, Michael? Did you?
The hair, the skin... *sighs heavily and wipes away a figurative tear*
It just makes me sick. Did he do this to himself?
Was his record label to blame for taking advantage of his skin condition vitiligo and using it to expand his global appeal? I guess this is what I'm clinging to, hoping somehow he was coerced and tricked into...that!
I still have so many questions. So, so many questions.
It's the first anniversary of his death and I should be weeping over the passing of an icon who possessed an inordinate amount of musical genius and dancing bravado.
But here I am in the early morning hours of June 25th, lamenting over his lost of blackness.
*sighs again*
I should not have been surprised...
Happy anniversary, all.
Rest in Peace, Michael Jackson.
Rest in Peace, the most confused black icon to ever live...
9 comments:
In the early 90s Chris Rock commented on the difference between rap and rock videos. He would watch a rap video, see Mercedes Jeeps, mansions, and big stacks of dollar bills. And it would make him sad, because when he watched a rock video he could see almost anything, like a man morphing into a bird or playing golf in outer space. It just highlighted the gulf between how limited the dreams of the former were compared to the latter.
Maybe Michael was just one of those rare black artists who said screw the trend, like George Clinton or Outkast, but in his effort to get past race he ceded something. Race is a maze and he got lost.
Not to break your (figurative) balls here, but just like in the Latoya post, you mention coercion. Remember, this man was friends with Liza Minnelli and Liz Taylor. An eye-patch worth of blue glitter and a jacket that was conservative by his standards doesn't seem that out of character.
Wow o_O
Okay, wtf is the correct term for this madness!
See I don't have any problem whatsoever with the blue glitter around his eye because he was always into glitter...his bedspread at Neverland was glittery! I do, however, like you, get an uncontrollable twitch in my right eye over the skin and hair.
I have never, ever seen a weave like that on a black man...ever. How did he get it to be so damn silky and straight, as if it grew out've his head like that?
See, I too wonder if he wanted to be white. I used to buy the excuse of him waiting until 1993 to mention having vitiligo because of embarrassment/privacy, knowing damn well he started to change colors in like 1985! Like we wouldn't notice; don't get all mad at all the constant speculation about your blackness and having to answer incessant questions if you were a "proud Black American" if you waited that long!!!
And I don't think he was coerced into anything; to do anything about image. I think he relished in his light skin and he was lucky to not have Jay Z lips (nothing against his lips LOL) when his vitiligo hit because that would not be a pretty picture even if he had the nose job...he would have looked freakish. He knew he could get away with the wearing of wavy/silky weaves and looking like a asian-white hybrid because he got light. And what's more disturbing is that so many of his fans like this look better, and you know which fans I'm talking about *rolls eyes*
Lisa Marie Presley once said in an interview that he was an artist and that that's why he had the license to change himself. Bullshit. You can change your dress, your music style, your attitude...but trying to erase all evidence of your former (and beautiful) blackness with the weaves, skin, children, women(LOL),etc is not excusable under the banner of "He's an artist!!!11!!" SMFH
(That's probably why so many in the media ripped so hard into him when he did that "Tommy Mottola is a racist devil!" shit. Oh so now you wanna be black, Mike? When you have been [allegedly] trying to whitewash yourself and visually distance yourself from your people? We're not gonna let you get off that easily!)
See, we will never know if he was self hating or not, if he was racist against that little black boy trapped inside of what he became. I don't like to think he was like that, matter of fact, I hate to think of it. But actions speak louder than words.
It's okay to be quirky and eclectic and eccentric; these values have no racial limitations. But sometimes I think Michael tried a little bit to hard to be globally appealing if you know what I mean.
And LMAO @ designer kids...sad thing is, that's probably true: he was rich...SMFH again
Happy anniversary though.
I've seen pictures of black men from the Harlem Renaissance, Zoot Suit era who had lye-processed conks that could give Michael's white hair a run for its money.
I actually remember when he took to the podium with a horned picture of Tommy Mottolla. He spoke in that high lilting voice: "He is a racist, and he is very, very devilish."
Mottolla has reputed mob ties that go way back. I'm surprised Michael didn't get in a car accident or overdose, if you catch my drift. I think Sony spent a record figure promoting the History album. I think Michael's last great song, long after he became Diana Ross and around the time he became an alien, was "Stranger in Moscow."
That song is wedding/funeral good.
White artists who admire black entertainers have never fully committed themselves to the role of being black like Michael did to the fallacy of being white. It would've been amusing to see David Bowie dye himself black and have Barry White's vocal chords grafted onto his skinny white head. Did you ever read, "Black Like Me," by John Howard Griffin? He was a white man who injected himself with melanin until he became black.
As far as Jay-Z goes, I remember seeing an early tour DVD where black girls (not normal black girls, I mean like foot-high weave beehives, decal nails) were going crazy talking about his lips. To me he always looked like Joe Camel, or Lou Gossett in "Enemy Mine." As for Michael, he looks like K.D Lang or Rachael Maddow.
As a slight aside, I've been trying to find this song forever. I finally thought to Google "House Party Love song," because I remembered it from that part of the movie where Kid walks his date home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIcmIhOesaI
Hirsch:
Was that Chris Rock's analysis on dream differences or yours? It's brilliant. It speaks volumes about the System...
We'll have to disagree about La Toya; she already stated that she was abused and coerced into doing things. I know, I know, I think she lies often but even Michael defended her book. Do you really think she would do 'exotic tours'? Whipping men and putting them on leashes? I don't think so...
As for Michael, I guess I'm coming around to 'reality'. I know you dissed Michael Eric Dyson over on SBPDL, but this is an apt, and intelligent, quote by him:
'The reason Black folk never turned their backs on Michael' (and we didn't!) 'is because we realized that he was merely acting out on his face what we collectively have been tempted to do in our souls: whitewash the memory and trace of our offending Blackness. We loved him because we knew that America rarely forgives a Black man his genius, and our greatest artists often pay the price for the acceptance of their gifts with tortured psyches, haunted spirits, and troubled minds.'
It's not about the jacket or the glitter. It's about the whole package, the whole image. I was taken aback when I saw how white his skin was and how silky his hair looked.
I don't know. I still think Sony misused his vitiligo for their own gain. Even if he went along with it willingly; they misused his self-hatred!
This is why your point in one of your emails saying he would have been able to stay as black as James Brown, etc. is just wrong. Michael said himself that stars whites loved, like Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis, Jr., never got the adulation he received. His measurement was 'Irish girls, Scottish girls...' white women in general.
He's right. Most of Michael's fans are white women (or non-black PoC). And I don't think he would be as big--if we are measuring by Michael's rules--if his skin was still dark.
That's why this pic disturbed me...
J-M-H:
Seriously, girl, you must be my triplet (I already have an identical twin sister) because you are totally in my head!
I was planning to write down everything you mentioned in your comment.
Now I have to worry about copyrights...LOL. ;-)
I don't want to be mean but have you ever searched out black albinos on the internet? Black people aren't supposed to be that color because some of us have features that don't translate very well in a paler hue.
I guess that's why I always think the most beautiful black people are the darkest ones. Hmmm. The blackest Africans are gorgeous; American black people (outside of myself...LOL), some of them ain't as cute. LMAO.
The hair is a lacefront wig. He wore the hell out of those suckers in his final years; his autopsy report said he had a huge tattoo from ear to ear and to his hairline.
I bet he looked a mess without the wig on, LOL. That pic would be worth a million bucks in the National Enquirer...
Happy anniversary. Well, it isn't happy for the Babies... :-(
Come to think of it: Mike is starting to look kind of good to me in that pic...sans the whole 'La Toya Jackson' look-a-likeness. His neck is soooo delicious!!! :-D
That Dyson quote isn't bad, except what he applies to black artists in America could be applied to artists anywhere, in any century.
What I mean is, the writer Charles Bukowski, when interviewed once near the end of his life, was asked, "Would you advise a young man to write?" He responded, "No." Why? "Because when you do it, you essentially turn yourself into a canary in the world of cats."
If your goal in life is to do anything besides acquire money and survive, you're leaving yourself vulnerable.
I think it sort of terrifies white people to think that black people have insecurities because it forces them to humanize blacks. Even the racist is more comfortable with the black superman like Michael Jordan or James Brown. The more buffoonish end of this spectrum like Mike Tyson makes racists feel even better.
Black people put up such a good exterior in this country, of strength, pride, etc. that when the realization or yearning that a black person wants to be white manifests, it's just perplexing to whites. It's like you've showed your hand in the racial card game.
I don't know why, but I continue to think of Jimmy Hendrix when I think about Mike. They were both tugged constantly in two directions. Jimmy left his white hippie group "The Experience," to be with his blues compatriots, and kept shifting back and forth until he died of asphyxiation at 27. Michael almost lived twice as long, which makes me wonder if he was comparatively well-adjusted.
Quick note: I received the book you sent me this evening. It's so vintage; it stops at Thriller so I'm guessing there's no dirt? But thank you; Michael looks delicious on the cover.
Like I said, if there is more where that came from, send it this way (please don't spend so much on shipping if you do; it killed me to see how they nickel and dime people at the post office). They will be safe with me...
Onward with the mixed tape! I have a feeling you aren't going to like all of the songs but, like I said before, I don't care...LOL.
See, whites really don't understand the depth, the insidious nature of self-hatred that black people--like Michael, for example--go through. It's an internal struggle.
That's what I mean when I talk about the legacy of slavery. Sometimes I have articulation issues but that's what I mean, basically.
Have you ever seen the movie 'Good Hair'? If you haven't you didn't miss anything (I'm still thinking about that $10 I wasted), but there were black women who felt attacked because Chris Rock said in the film that black women perm their hair because 'they want to be white.' They felt attacked because hey feel black.
But, see, I think even black people aren't aware of their own self-hatred issues. A lot of us say, 'I'm black and I'm proud' but it's rendered meaningless by these sort of subconscious/unconscious ticks we do. Like, for example, my grandmother collects white children. She loves little white kids and loves when they love her. It's really...sickening. She always has something bad to say about black kids, though.
It's just so hard to explain without people getting uncomfortable and thinking they're being blamed for something (so, I shouldn't even try to explain over there LOL).
Michael is just the poster child for it all. what do you think someone like Michael should've done? Or someone like Jimi Hendrix? I don't know much about Hendrix but for Michael, choose black; your people, your Hue-man family!
Have you watched those videos of Del Jones I have on the site? Your curious nature makes me think you'd enjoy them...
Michael's best song is 'Lady In My Life'. The singing, the tender grooves...ah! It's like he's making love to you (girl thinking LOL). 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'' is second. Oh, and 'This Place Hotel' from the Jacksons. The music--it drives me crazy. 'Just Good Friends'!
I ain't knocking you but 'Stranger in Moscow' is a bore. IMHO; it's 'good' but IDK. The video is good, though; he looked so HOT! I cannot imagine that song for a wedding; it's so depressing. Makes me cry.
Michael during HIStory was so hot; I hate saying that because he looks like an 'Angelface', as his white fans say. I keep my mind trained on black Mike, Thriller Mike. Shit, I have issues.
Glad you got the book. No dirt, but maybe some irony and foreshadowing. Don't worry about shipping. My other MJ books are buried in with Howard Hughes bios, but I will find them.
I didn't see "Good Hair", but I would watch it just to see the Nia Long segment. I fear no mix-tape. I went to a predominately (overused word) black high-school and had a bunch of black roommates in the Army; Jagged Edge, Ginuwine, Kells, I've heard it all. "When a Woman's Fed Up" is probably the best modern R & B song, on the level of Sam Cooke.
Honestly, I don't know if you can pin black women torturing themselves for beauty all on wanting to be white. White women starve themselves, purge, and hundreds of years ago it was not uncommon to damage a lung trying to get a corset right. Isn't that all women?
Your taste in Michael's best cuts is suspect! "Stranger" is over processed and synthesized, but Michael's best group work, in this order: "Maria," "Standing in the Shadows of Love," and "Can You feel it." Whenever I watch that video I remember the wonderment I had at Michael, like most kids, all those memories come back. I had the "Moonwalker" video game, lol.
No matter how pretty Nia Long is (and she's pretty) 'Good Hair' is not worth your time. Trust me! I am probably the idiot to have even expected some sort of in-depth sociological/psychological piece about the notion of 'good hair' from Chris Rock. He's not even funny, really...although he had me dying talking about Red Lobster or some shit like that.
You might not mind it because, in all honesty, it is a topic pretty foreign to you. A general analysis wouldn't be noticeable. I just have hard expectations when it comes to stuff like that, things I feel need to be addressed by the black community.
I got into an internet fight with a few black girls about their 'hair' in a makeup forum. They don't understand the symbolism behind what they do to themselves. It's not that they are intentionally trying to look white; it's that they are intentionally trying to not look black.
This is a reality: black people are the biggest group of haters. We hate each other. It's like crabs in a barrel. It's sad. That's why I try to love my people; they need help. Sure, white women go to extremes as well, but it's just different. Clamoring for a tiny waistline is more tangible than using 'complexion brighteners' to change how the outside world sees your 'color'. That just has a whole 'nother element of BS that one has to conform to.
You mentioned 'Black Like Me'. That book is interesting. I remember seeing the movie late at night on some basic cable channel and thinking the whole experiment was BS. The book: maybe I have to give it another chance but his whining annoyed me. I didn't like how he was turning their poverty and pain into his struggle. It just made me...upset. But I'm different now so I should re-read it.
Anyway, my taste in Mike's best songs is suspect?! LOL. But you like 'Stranger in Moscow', seriously, when it comes on in my iPod I just keep flipping. I love Mike but that song is so safe; like I said I cried when I realized he wrote it about the 1993 allegations. I thought, 'Oh, you poor creature! How could they do that to you?' Typical girl stuff. Bores me to tears now.
How can you doubt the power of 'Lady In My Life'? It's so sweet and beautiful! It made me cry about 2 weeks ago; I had to replay it. But the thing is I love R&B; I love singers and I love love songs. You might not be into that.
See, I'm from a time in which I drooled over N'Sync and Backstreet Boys. I argued over who was better: Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera. Pathetic, I know, but it's true. Outside of Michael, Christina Aguilera is the only artist I care about. (I used to really be into Eminem, too.)
It was a dark place LOL. I told you, I have issues.
I'll throw that Michael B-side on the CD. It's a good one. I'm not trying to destroy your eardrums and drive you insane. Maybe you're just more open-minded than me; I would honestly fear someone's mixtape! It's kind of like food: if it scares me or gives me any sort of pause, I won't touch it. Unless it's black (or not meat, for food).
BTW, you always talk about how much you read and how you have so many books. I envy you, Hirsch. Reading makes me sleepy and I can't finish books to save my life. Last book I read completely was Michael Jackson was my lover.
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