Michael Jackson an Enigmatic American Icon
Paul I. Adujie
Race still creates hurdles in America and around the world. These hurdles are at times visible and invincible hurdles. Michael Jackson apparently took this to heart and too hard. Michael Jackson’s frontal attack on his own skin, nose and hair demonstrated how racial inferiority mindset can become a personal demon, once unleashed, cannot be tamed even by fame, riches or wildest success. Michael Jackson’s unusual relationship with his blackness in this context, make tragic sense
Despite Michael Jackson’s phenomenal success and world acclaim, riches and fame did not improve his sense of himself it appears. And this makes anyone want to ask, the question, what is it, in America’s social cultural construct which propelled Michael Jackson and others to change and jettison their skin color through bleaching, reduce nose size as did Patti Labelle? Does this sort of skin, hair and nose size fixation reflect a pathology of damaged psyche, ingrained in the minds of our people, as a consequence of hundreds of years of being ridiculed and portrayed as having less desirable skins, hairs, nose, accent etc?
Race, unfortunately, remains a major factor an essential component of how life is lived in America, and in fact, it is how life is lived on earth. In Michael Jackson’s death, race reared its heard in poignant ways.
Many commentators felt the need to compare Mr. Jackson to Elvis Presley and the Beatles. This need to continue to compare an extraordinary artiste such as Michael Jackson to dead white musicians of old, exemplifies how race continues to be a major factor and of its effects as to how all facets of life is live in America as in the selection of firefighters in the state of Connecticut or construction contractors in the state of Colorado.
Jamie Foxx an American movie star, a musician, a great entertainer in his own right and a person of African descent himself, at BET Awards ceremonies on Sunday June 28, 2009 urged a celebration of Michael Jackson, who he called this black man who is ours, who belonged to us, who we shared with the rest of the world, Mr. Foxx extolled MJ’s sound, creativity and talent. Mr. Foxx praised MJ, old nose, new nose or no nose!...
olaka...@aol.com
Dear Paul:
I strongly believe that it is simplistic to reduce Michael Jackson's
destructive fixation on his own physical appearance, e.g alterations to his skin color,
nose and hair) to a matter of simple inferiority complex.
The situation with MJ is definetely more complex. It is probably rooted
in a more complex pathological state that encompasses both psychosomatic
dimensions.
MJ's case was not just one of a rich black star trying to jettison
the physical characteristics of his racial origins. MJ was to say the
least, a weird and extremely emotionaly troubled enigmatic individual.
MJ's weirdness, demeanours and preferences reflect the characteristics
of geniuses, whose God given talents are only just a short breath
removed from the state of madness.
If we explain MJ's nose, hear and other bodily alterations on inferiority
complex how do we explain his Peter Pan fixations with everything boyish
and his preference for toys and playgrounds and for sharung his bed with nubile
boys even when he was in his fourties,
How do we expalin his preference for facial masks both for himself and his
children and for wearing single handed bejewelled gloves?
I strongly believe that MJ was at home with his 'blackness' and African-American
roots. His weird actions and lifestyle were beyond his control having been
driven by some psychological urges that experts in the fields of behavioural psychology and psychiatry
are only beginning to understand.
The reclusive life styles of Mozart, Bach, Michelangelo and other historic geniuses compare favorably
with what we observed in the weired behaviours exemplified by MJ during his lifetime.
Finally, MJ fading skin color might not have been self inflicted. He was diagnosed with a skin lightening condition
called Vitiligo in the early 1980s. The etiology of Vitiligo (which causes progressive depigmentation of the skin) remains
unknown. Some have theorized a genetic basis for this condition whilst others have opined on a possible
drug induced autoimmune drug reaction as the underlying cause for Vitiligo.
In summary, MJ was probably a slave of the same psychosomatic aberrations that sometimes accompany the attributes of being a genius
(genui), while at the same time he also suffered from a serious physical condition--Vitiligo.
James Brown, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Elvis Presley and Marvin Gaye also lived weird lifestyles. The only difference was that MJ was just more weired.
It is simply a matter of degrees of weirdness or 'madness.' Fela's weird lifestyle whic entailed the marrying and sleeping with multiple young females eventually led
to his demise from HIV. James Brown was frequently in jail for wife beating finally succumbing to a pneumonia as he did not look after his own physical health
as he should have been doing. Elvis was a virtual drug addict for the last 15 years of his life.
MJ probably died of a h eart attack induced by unintentional drug overdose--after taking some narcotic drugs (pain killers) to which he had become addicted over the years.
Could MJ's vitiligo also have been an immunological side effect of one of the numerous drugs he abused? We may never know!
Bye,
Ola
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul I. Adujie <lawc...@gmail.com>
To: USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, Jun 30, 2009 1:23 pm
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Michael Jackson an Enigmatic American Icon
Race, unfortunately, remains a major factor an essential component of how life is lived in America, and in fact, it is how life is lived on earth. In Michael Jackson’s death, race reared its heard in poignant ways.
Many commentators felt the need to compare Mr. Jackson to Elvis Presley and the Beatles. This need to continue to compare an extraordinary artiste such as Michael Jackson to dead white musicians of old, exemplifies how race continues to be a major factor and of its effects as to how all facets of life is live in America as in the selection of firefighters in the state of Connecticut or construction contractors in the state of Colorado.