The Day the Music Died

June 25, 2009. Before I got out of the car I said to my cousin, “Could this day get any worse?” When I got inside I continued my pre-election habit of turning on CNN. I was shocked. Michael Jackson was dead at age 50. A friend called. “Are you crying? Stevi, please don’t cry.” I stopped for a second. And then I started again. I tried to clear my thoughts. Why am I crying? 

Okay, I’m clear now. I am mad. Really mad. Pissed off, in fact. That the world would come at one man so hard that he died at age 50 in a time when people are living into their eighties and nineties. 

I had to turn my television off. People were talking and even though they weren’t sure he was dead, they kept saying he was. Then, in order to fill time, they started rehashing what they called his “sea of troubles”. Did he or didn’t he do things to little boys. Was he or wasn’t he sick. Was he or wasn’t he unstable, after all, he did dangle the baby. And what about his finances?  It sort of reminded me of the image of a lynching. The one where the dead man is cut down by the angry mob and they cut his penis off or set him on fire because, after all, a black man can never be dead enough.

I clicked off of Face Book, too. People seem to delight in being mean. One person commented: leave it to Michael to steal Farrah’s light.  As if he chose to die immediately after Farrah so we wouldn’t take note. As if he wanted to die.  But let us be very clear, one thing Michael never had to do was steal a light. He was born with a light of his own. More talent than the world will ever see again in one person. 

His light shone on music videos and turned them into cinema. Something superb. Marvelous. We Are the World opened the door for celebrities like Bono and Oprah to draw attention to Africa and other causes. Michael allowed the NAACP to shadow the Victory Tour so that when fans were waiting in long lines to get in they were being registered to vote. Eighty thousand people were registered as a result. Yeah, rock the vote.

I don’t need to take you back to the Ed Sullivan Show and the Jackson 5 featuring little Michael Jackson sing Since I Don’t Have You. I fell in love and so did the rest of America. His career is so iconic that to review it is unnecessary. We were all there. I don’t have to tell you how many Michael Jackson songs are a part of the soundtrack of our lives.

I go back to the news. I’m still mad. I was watching the 2003 Academy Awards the year Roman Polanski won Best Director for The Pianist starring Adrian Brody. The entire room stood to their feet in standing ovation. Of course, Polanski was not there to accept his award. Unable to return to the United States because of the decades old sex-with-a-minor charge that still hangs over his head. But his community still honored him. No one brought up his sordid past. But the news agencies couldn’t wait to drag out the footage of Michael and his baby on the balcony and all of the rest. 

One minute they love him. The next they hated him, for who could love a black man that the whole world loved? Who could love a black man that transcended his blackness? Who could love a black man who called himself the KING of Pop?

He was never Wacko Jacko. Genius is not weird. Talent is not weird. A child’s heart is not weird. Different is not weird. Different is God’s creativity. The sparrow does not scoff at the peacock. The tabby cat does not mock the tiger. Only man seeks to make himself feel better by thinking less of his fellow man.

Over the last couple of days as people have recounted their favorite MJ song, The Man In the Mirror was sited by many. The man in the mirror is me. The man in the mirror is you. He’s the world. Michael Jackson was the mirror. Reflecting our flaws and anxieties. Our joys and our fears. Showing us our imperfections and yes, our own weirdness and idiosyncrasies  He reflected back one of our most prized possessions. That thing that sometimes gets covered in the dirt of hypocrisy and the grime of greed. Michael Jackson showed us our humanity.