Al Sharpton

08Jul09

As a general rule, I am not an Al Sharpton fan. In fact, I think he’s rather out of his mind, at times. But today at Michael Jackson’s memorial service, which I did indeed watch with undivided attention like many, many millions of people in this world, he impressed me thoroughly with what he said to Michael Jackson’s three children:

There was nothing strange about your daddy, it was strange what your daddy had to deal with.

I have always thought the media had vilified Michael Jackson, but it was my mother that really put it together for me. On the news, the talking heads were discussing how Michael Jackson was a hermit and never spoke in public or addressed any of the rumors surrounding him. My mother made an excellent point upon hearing this. She asked angrily, “Why would he come out in public? Why would he talk to the media? They made him a joke!” And then it hit me full force that it was indeed the toxic pop culture media that enjoys bringing people up only to watch them fall that, in effect, made him out to be a freak. They were the ones who named him Wacko Jacko. They were the ones who insinuated that he was the odd man out and exaggerated every move he made into a gigantic freak show. Would you want to show your face to a world that seems to ridicule you? Wouldn’t you want to protect your children from the rude whispers and disturbing stares? In his shoes, I don’t blame him. I see him as a man who never got a normal childhood and, in effect, wanted nothing more than to give his children what he couldn’t have. The only way to do this was to keep them out of public scrutiny. Do I think some of his actions rather paranoid and odd? Sure. But can you honestly blame him when he thought he walked in a world where people hated him because they read about his so-called freakish actions every other week in the magazines?

I haven’t met many people that would say anything about Michael Jackson other than that he was a devastatingly talented human being. Those who could even imagine that Michael Jackson would dare bring harm to anyone has fallen victim to the vicious rumors that the celebrity gossip mill has produced. It disgusts me that magazines show pictures of the man when he was dead (see the cover of the past week’s OK! Magazine) with a headline crowing, “How Michael REALLY Died!” And then now! All of these media outlets worshipping him reverently as though they had always given him the respect he deserved if not for being extremely talented then at the very LEAST being a human being? They can bite me, the whole hypocritical lot of them. They hadn’t given him an ounce of respect until he died.

I am sorry that his children will have to grow up one day and realize that all the people being so kind now were not always so polite regarding their father. You couldn’t listen to Paris Jackson speak today and think Michael had ever so much as yelled at her or her brothers, or treated them with anything but pure love. I am glad that while the media might be a bunch of dirty, brown-nosing turncoats, Michael Jackson’s family does have the respect and reverence of his fans, whose numbers and voices easily drown those of the malicious.

And for the record? I don’t think he was a pedophile. I never have. He was an amazing man. Talented, kind spirited, unequivocally just in his regard to people of all walks to life, and an amazing humanitarian who wanted and gave nothing but a whole lot of love.

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