Michael Jackson has been in my life since I was a child. Born a year after me (and sharing the same astrological sign) this Gary, Indiana native was the first black boy I knew of to receive the unbridled adoration of mainstream America. Sure, he was better looking and vastly more talented than me, by it felt like Michael and the rest of the Jackson Five were representing all of us little Afro-wearing early-‘70s kids. It was with great pride that my family and friends from the sixth floor in Brooklyn’s Tilden Projects went to see the Jackson Five at Madison Square Garden in 1971 or so, looking down from the cheap seats at this dynamic family group.
Fifteen years later Michael helped me get my first apartment. While working as black music editor of Billboard magazine, I penned a quickie biography of the singer to satisfy his Thriller era fans. The royalties from that book allowed me to get my first apartment sans roommate, while the book itself launched me in the world of pop punditry. Back in the remarkable summer of ’84 Michael was still brown skinned, had a jheri-curl and was using street dance steps in his performances and videos. Though clearly a little eccentric, Michael, with his breathy voice and childish interest, didn’t seem as weird as, say, Prince.
A little over twenty years after the triumph of Thriller and now approaching middle age, Michael Jackson looks nothing like the little boy I admired. His skin is pale and chalky. He wears bizarre outfits. Although Jackson won’t go to jail for any of the 10 counts of child molestation or child endangerment he was on trial for, his life and career will remain tainted. His fascination with young boys – young white boys – is still disquieting. The details of his personal life unearthed during the trial will shadow him for the rest of his life.
I had emotionally disconnected from Michael years, as his skin tone lightened and his public persona darkened. I’m not alone in that. While black Americans are usually quite loyal to our tainted stars (see O.J. and Mike Tyson for reference), support for Michael seems more muted. I suspect this is as much because of his ongoing loss of pigment as for the crimes he was tried for. None of his explanations for how he grew lighter have been very convincing. It is one thing to have a white District Attorney go target you. Black people understand that game. It is another when you seem (and I use “seem” since there is no hard evidence for this) to have willfully tried to de-black yourself.
Still the idea of Michael Jackson in jail is disturbing. It’s hard to imagine this frail, delicate man-child surviving a lengthy stretch in the hard-as-nails California state prison system. Chris Rock has joked about how horrible Jackson would look minus his make and hair staff, a image that is not just comic but also grotesque. If his defense had pleaded mental illness the trial would have been an open-and-shut affair. I don’t think that there's a fair-minded group of people in this country (outside his most devoted fans) who don’t think Michael needs therapy more than incarceration. But that would have meant acknowledging some of Michael’s actions were wrong and he, and his handlers, were reluctant to give an inch. Yet if my 47-year-old self was found regularly getting into bed with neighborhood kids after serving them an alcoholic beverage, I know my ass would be in big trouble.
Yet despite his irreparably damaged personal reputation, I’m sure Michael’s musical legacy is secure. Usher and Justin Timberlake are just the prominent of the new generation of pop crooners who couldn’t get out of bed without recycling a Jackson vocal riff or melody, much less walk on stage without his influence. Moreover, in my travels into nightclubs on both coasts, in listening to various radio stations and just talking to folks, its clear that Michael’s trial has made people re-hear his catalogue of music. His great hooks, which anchored coded messages of paranoia (“Billie Jean”) and megalomania (“Can You Feel It”) now seem more urgent and relevant than they have in a decade. No longer simply extraordinary pop music, Michael’s songs now sound like letters from a cold, isolated island. If all art is a distillation of the essence of its maker’s true nature perhaps, millions of sales later, we’re finally hearing Michael Jackson for the first time.
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