Posted by Dan Ewert : 7/09/2002 12:46:00 AM (Archive Link)
Just read this article on CNN.com. It appears that Michael Jackson has come out and said that the music industry is racist. His particular target is Sony Music chairman Tommy Mottola. Jackson referred to him as “mean, he’s a racist, and he’s very, very, very devilish.” I find the timing on this to be rather poignant considering that Jackson currently owes millions to Sony music after his last album, Invincible, failed to make much money.

What I don’t find odd is that the Gloved One has teamed up with Al Sharpton to help with his cause. If there’s anything Mr. Sharpton is skilled at, it’s attaching himself to a high profile, racially charged cause. He’ll do whatever he can to make the case more public, even more racially charged, and will fill the air with rumors, innuendo, and astoundingly daring lies. It certainly helps that the primary target of his invective is one person. Having a single enemy makes a smear campaign much easier.

Although, I’m hoping that the only person getting smeared by all this is Mr. Sharpton himself. As I’ve complained elsewhere about the current state of the civil rights “movement,” its proponents have a bad habit of choosing rather poor subjects as their poster boys. They often defend the cause of somebody who has a history of violence or who is blindingly guilty. In the case of O.J. Simpson, for example, he not only fell into those two categories, but he was hardly a member of the black community. He had amassed a great deal of money, was married to a white woman, hobnobbed with stars, lived in an exclusive and white part of town, and never did anything noble to give back to the village that raised him. He couldn’t much care for black people. And yet he was raised up on the shoulders of the oppressed minority as a paragon of… well, not virtue… but of a dark skinned guy given a raw deal by the man. Suddenly Mr. Simpson was adored and uplifted by a community he explicitly shunned.

So in a similar vein, I find Michael Jackson to be a very strange poster boy. Granted, he doesn’t have a history of violence, but he’s certainly not the sort you would expect to be touted as the key to a racial agenda. Over the years, the man has done almost everything possible to obscure his African roots. Even if you put aside the debate concerning the veracity of his skin-lightening condition, the massive amount plastic surgery speaks for itself. He’s changed his nose, chin, cheekbones, eyes, etc., and now looks like a frightening mannequin-like white man. He’s been an isolated superstar all his life and has used his fame and fortune to further isolate himself on his fantasy ranch. All this and his increasing weirdness severely limit his credibility as somebody who is representative of your typical African American. I can only hope that this in turn will strain Mr. Sharpton’s credibility as well. He’s crafty, though, so I wouldn’t count on it.